Salt of the Earth
by theplanetmary
Summary: NOT a part of either Native Sky or Like Us Universes; Dean/Cas pre-slash: Part Four of Four: Slay me a dragon...
1. Chapter 1

**So this was a fic written for an exchange over on LJ and I liked it alot so I decided to cross post it here. THIS IS NOT A PART OF THE NATIVE SKY OR LIKE US UNIVERSES!!! This is a standalone that is complete and over the next week i will upload it completely. **

**This was betaed by the lovely ~Sierra Nichole, she rocks! Worship her!**

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**There's some weird terminology here so here's a translation:**

_**These are the titles of ranks in the Greecian Army (I've applied them to the Host's ranks)**_

**1. Ypolochagos - Lieutenant **

**2. Lochagos - Captain**

**3. Tagmatarchis - Major**

**4. Antistratigos - Lieutenant General**

**5. Stratigos - General**

**Concerning the OFC: Abaddon is often found in lore in Heaven as the Angel of War or in Hell as the Angel of Destruction, it evidently swings both ways and while Abaddon is a pretty heavy hitter, upside or down, but it's not in such a high ranking position as Lieutenant General. The version of Abaddon used here is designed entirely by yours truly, she more on the Heavenly side. **

**Concerning the Archdemon: According to religious lore Focalor is one of the three Archdemons of Hell but also stands as a Duke with thirty Legions of demons and spirits at his command. He has power over wind and sea and is loyal only to Lucifer and only hesitates at his command. He is referred to as and appears as a griffon. **

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**Summary: **_**Some reward…**_

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**Salt of the Earth**

_**"It would be absurd if we did not understand both angels and devils, since we have invented them…"**_

_-East of Eden; __**John Steinbeck**_

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**Salida, Sawatch Mountain Range, Rocky Mountains, Chaffee County, Colorado **

**Stardate 2260; September 12**

**0635 Hours**

**...**

_Some reward..._

He may have been born into this... who the Hell was he trying to convince, he'd seen it himself. Seen his grandsire and granddam... seen his dam... seen it with his own eyes.

He'd been _bred_ into this. It ran as strongly in his blood as the instincts did in his muscles, it was a much a part of his being as the scars in his hide or the print branded into his shoulder.

The clay of his very being was molded for this, twisted and made for the Hunt and the War and to bear the weight of The Host's General, every last cell was designed for his lot in life.

It didn't mean he wanted to do it for centuries at a time...

_Some reward..._

Dean Winchester glanced up from his map, a real, honest to God map, not some damn downloaded PADD images. Dean let his fingertips trail across the inked and dyed surface of the fiber paper as he straightened; he liked the simplicity of the sensation, the reality of it instead of intangible pixels.

Dean arched his back, letting the sound of his muscles pulling and bones popping ring in his ears. All the sounds he associated with age and the bone deep ache that never left him these days, no matter how much he drank or how much sleep he got. He sucked in a deep breath of air, it was cool and crisp and made the ache in his lungs and ribs a little sharper.

He watched as a slight framed man hesitated to allow a few civilian patrons cross in front of him to the fuel stop. The man was small, compact and solid. His mousy brown hair was ruffled and stuck up in all odd directions; it gave him a 'just-rolled-out-of-the-passenger-seat' look. The man's skin was only slightly tanned, as if his pallor was so fair it refused to color. He was dressed so similarly to Dean they could have been living out of the same duffle. Jeans that collected into ripples of folds at his ankles over scarred hiking boots, a pale blue tee shirt and a cobalt plaid flannel that was a size or more to big, even with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His wrists were heavy with strands of colored glass and metal beads and around his throat was a silver chain and crucifix.

The most startling feature of the slight man was his eyes. They were a pure azure blue that Dean has seen change into a soft cerulean or harden into steel grey or at the worst of times turn into planes of sheer ice. They were not the eyes of some mortal, they were innocent and so pure it was painful to look into them, yet so wizen and sorrowful the ache tripled, ancient and inhuman.

The man carefully balanced two large cups made of throw-away paper in his hands. In the cooling air Dean could make out the curls of heated steam slipping through the secured lids. The man started across the parking lot, his strides even and soundless save for the gentle clink of glass and metal at his wrists. The man's pace never quickened but his attention turned from his surroundings to Dean as he approached until the space between them had closed.

"Black." He offered one steaming container. Dean noticed the slim string and printed paper tag peaking from under the lid of the other. It fluttered slightly in the air.

"Thanks, Cas." Dean rasped. Even his own voice sounded foreign to him, broken and cracked after the botched mop up a few years back and his voice box had been crushed. Dean let his fingers brush over the inside of the other man's wrist, catching a single flutter of his pulse and feeling the same simplicity and reality of warm flesh under his hand.

It was good to have a few things real and solid. Things he could touch to either assure or reassure himself. Things that needed him and that he needed. Things that grounded him in the world that moved so fast and bright and loud and was so... _full_ it was surreal.

Castiel was one of them. Castiel had been with him since the beginning... at least that's what the diminished angel told him. Told him that Castiel had been there at Dean's conception and was there for every breath he took; then, now and in the years to come, Castiel swore to be at his side.

Castiel was real. Real as the smudge like bruises under his eyes, real as the engraved Colt 1911 pressed into the small of his back, real as the ache in his muscles and lungs and heart, real as the crisp air and the map he'd been poring over. Real as cool, black metal of the Impala sliding against his spine as he leaned back into her fender and hood.

"You're welcome, Dean." Castiel sipped at his own container.

"And thanks for not trying too hard to get me to drink that herbal, cleansing crap." Dean motioned at the fluttering paper tag and string hanging from the other drink. That was Castiel, always trying to pour the cleanse down his throat, fill his stomach with leafy greens and fat frees and sugar lesses.

Dean must have gone soft in the last few years because Castiel got what he wanted more often than not, stupid lingering, purist, tree hugger, harm no living thing angelic philosophy.

Some of the diminished angel's mojo must have decided to flare and Deans thoughts must have crossed behind those azure eyes as Castiel only nodded, with a twitch of lips in that not-really-there smile.

"At least it's not replicated food." Dean muttered somewhat sourly and drank deeply from the container of black coffee, one of his last stands against Castiel's purism.

Castiel made no more than a soft sound of agreement, not quite enough gusto to call it a grunt. The reaction is human enough that Dean figures the flicker of power had fled the angel again. They came and went so easily now, like skipped heart beats or temperamental hiccups. Little flickers of what Castiel once was that deteriorates slowly but steadily as time passes. Dean can't help but notice it matches his own flickering gains and losses.

Like the humanity that he never noticed before was seeping out of himself and into the semi-Fallen and a little of Castiel's old power leeched into him. It's not a lot, just enough to notice. Enough to scent the sulphur lingering in the air after a demon or catch glimpses of the blinding light at the edge of the sun that may or may not be an angel blinking into existence.

Dean sighed quietly, leaning heavily back against the Impala and let his head dip towards his chest, his viridian eyes droop until they're half lidded and he's letting his age catch up to him for a moment, letting the ache blur together and the cool in the air start to bite into the exposed skin of his forearms and throat and face. His hands warmed only by one wrapped around the coffee and the other tucked into the edge of his jeans pocket.

"Dean..."

He knew that tone, knew that request in a single word and he sighed loudly, blinking his eyes open and looking around them.

"I like Colorado." Dean rasped, looking around almost longingly. And next to him Castiel went quiet, waiting for Dean's nostalgia to fade. He looked around that small fuel stop perched on the edge of the great spine of mountains. The Rockies, still untouched and left to roam wild thousands of feet above. Sloped walls of green that match the color of his eyes, rolling walls of clouds that perch on the peaks. The air always cold, always biting and forcing one to breathe. _Really breathe._ When the snows comes, deep and quiet and cleansing. It's so quiet and so still but so alive and wild and _free_ it _**hurts**_.

Dean refuses to be called religious and on occasion, in passing, Castiel could get away with calling him 'spiritual'. But Dean could not help but looking into the Rockies, surrounded by green and blue and purple peaks and hear the echoes and feel the feral, ancient, power of them; he could not help calling this place one of the Cathedrals of the World.

Castiel's words not his. That made them no less fitting. These places so untouched and remote and peaceful that Dean actually _forgot_.

Dean wondered idly if the Grand Canyon was the same way. There were so many... offworlders there now. Dean had never seen it untouched, never seen it raw and watched the sun rise over the edge of his long beloved fantasy sanctuary before he heard that the government had negotiated to let some of the _xenos_ stake claims in one of the basins. That the climate and heat and the landscape was suited to them. That it was _logical_ and _practical_ for them to make a stead there and the government, after centuries of protecting and saving and cherishing the Canyon _gave_ it to them for good relations.

"Not all of." Castiel cut into his thoughts, another passing flicker of mojo. "Only part of a southern basin. Only a few acres-"

"That was too much, Cas." Dean snarled. Bitterness flooding him like a poison. "The Canyon was ours. The Canyon was _mine_."

Castiel only cast his eyes away and looked towards the frosted peaks of the Rockies, giving Dean a moment to settle himself, draw himself back, to wonder why he cared at all. It had always been a fantasy, a dream, something that was so normal and so real and so raw that Dean wondered if he avoided it just to have that one goal. That the day he watched the sun rise on the Canyon he was done and he could breathe his last.

Then he got his _reward_ and they gave the Canyon to _them._

At least there was still Colorado. And Montana and the Dakotas and Wyoming. Most of the offworlders were warm weather species and that suited Dean just fine. It kept them away from Yellowstone and the Rockies, the Badlands and the Lakes.

Dean let another tired sigh slip from his lips. "Where this time, Cas?"

"San Francisco." The sapphire eyes turned to meet jade ones. Dean almost growled, almost showed his teeth to the diminished angel.

"Are you doing this on purpose? Last time it was Dallas and the time before that it was Fresno."

"I don't pick the Sites, Dean. It's where He leaves His fingerprints." Castiel's voice stays the same quiet and calm that it has been for years and Dean sighs heavily again. Giving one last look towards the Rockies before nodding and turning to sweep the map off the hood of the Impala and moved to the driver's door. Castiel steps around the front of the Chevrolet and towards the passenger seat. They drop into the supple leather, letting it mold to their forms and swing the doors closed in simultaneous groans and thuds of metal impacting with metal. The low, rumbling roar of the engine draws the attention of the few site seers in the parking lot as Dean, Castiel and the Impala rumble onto the mountain roads, climbing down towards the highways.

**...**

_**Bunk 48: Chief Medical Officer Leonard Horatio McCoy**_

_**Starfleet Academy Medical Facilities and Personnel Dormitories**_

_**San Francisco, California**_

_**Stardate 2260**_

_**September 13**_

Doctor Leonard Horatio McCoy sighed, a long and low pass of air dribbling from his chest and passed his nose. He lifted a large hand and let it settle over his eyes, taking the pressure and added darkness in stride. It alleviated some of the pain bobbing behind his eyes.

He breathed deep and slow and tried to forget the feeling of intestines and blood slipping over the plastic of surgical gloves. He tried to imagine the smell of Spanish moss and magnolias and wishes he was sweating because it was the humid air of Mississippi or Louisiana around him and not the climate controlled dorms of Starfleet Campus.

He wished he could go back to that homeland. Back to where his bloodline fed back to before the Civil War and still ran strong in most of the state, where he could go to Church in the dawn of Sunday mornings and eat crawfish pie until his stomach burst, where it was white kid gloves and lazy porch fans. Where a good Southern lawyer could win him back his daughter and he could teach her the Cajun French and Zidaco lulled them all to sleep alongside the bullfrogs.

Where he didn't have to worry about crew men coming back in ribbons and fear of being blown up or having his cells scattered across the universe. Where the biggest problem could be a long time feud with the neighbors or waking up to a gator in the yard and your dog or cat missing.

He didn't flinch when the door to his temporary dorm slid open and an over large ball of energy and blond hair hurtled into his barren room, the idle slosh of liquid in a glass container echoing with it.

McCoy suppressed a sigh and stayed still, hoping that the much younger man might realize he'd treaded in on McCoy and an afternoon nap and maybe, _just maybe_ he'd turn and leave.

"Bones! Up! Let's go!"

He refused to move. Refused to make a sound. If he faked it long enough the kid would get bored and find someone else to play with. Some other ear to sink his milk teeth into and tug and tug until the older dog snapped.

He felt the mattress dip with weight as the younger man climbed up onto the bed and stood, not sat, not knelt, _stood_ over him and bounced a little. "Bones! Now! That's an order!"

He was a doctor after all, he had the patience of Job, he'd just spent hours on end elbow deep in a man's gut. He could wait for this youthful energy to run its course.

"LEONARD!"

"WHAT!?!" McCoy shot up and roughly shoved the younger man spilling him onto the floor with a startled yelp and thud and the sound of something heavy and weighed down rolling across the floor. "Goddamnit Jim! What do ya WANT?!"

After a second the ruffled spikes of a blond head peeked over the edge of the mattress. It was followed by a pair of sharp blue eyes and a slim, square jaw. The young man was solidly built, wide shouldered and chested, he was tall, lithe and long limbed. Fine feature enough to be called handsome and self assured enough to be called a playboy. He wore a pair of jeans and simple black under armor shirt that made it clear the boy had only stripped the outer layers of his uniform and sliding a pair of jeans on before rushing to find him.

James Tiberius Kirk's wide blue eyes looked a little startled and a little amused, he quirked his lips into a half smile. "C'mon Bones, we've got to get down town."

"Since when did I agree to go anywhere with ya?" McCoy drawled and growled in his low, Southern dialect.

Kirk's face fell slightly and he blinked, cocking his head at McCoy in confusion. "Bones? Seriously? You don't want to go? This is your kind of thing."

"_What_ are ya talkin' 'bout?" McCoy growled. Kirk's brows knit together then realization crossed his face.

"You haven't heard. You told me, you had that surgery this morning." Kirk muttered.

"Yes Jim, I've been in surgery all morin'. So go away-"

"No Bones! You have to come! You're going to lose your shit! They're actually calling it a miracle! A friggin' miracle complete with angels and God and everything!" Kirk's face is plastered with a wild grin. "I mean it looks more like a battle field or something, bodies all over the place, but... screw it let's just go! I bet we'll get all access clearance for being Starfleet and saving the Earth and everything."

Kirk bounced to his feet and snatched up the bottle of amber liquid that had rolled under McCoy's desk.

"Ya want me to go to midtown San Francisco; drinkin' with ya to look at some massacre they're callin' a miracle?"

"Now! Let's go!"

**...**

**Saint Patrick's Cathedral**

**San Francisco, California**

**Stardate 2260 **

**September 13**

Dean eased the Impala carefully into a strip of empty curb and parked, cutting the rumbling engine and letting the quiet settle around him until he opened the door and the crush of city noise and people buried him in the sureality again. He took a deep steeling breath and looked towards the passenger seat poised to speak but hesitated when he saw Castiel curled up against the door, asleep.

He did that a lot. Slept. And it seemed sound and dreamless sleep. It was as if he was making up for the thousands of years of his creation that was all waking, all awareness. The oblivion seemed to suit Castiel.

"Cas. C'mon." Dean reached over and gently nudged the smaller man's shoulder, letting his hand slide up to settle in the curve of his collar bone and squeezed. Castiel jerked, nearly cracking his head against the window, he looked around, blinking his eyes in a daze. His breath hitching irregularly, the laptop open on his lap jostling and tipping, only saved when Castiel grabbed it.

For a moment there was nothing but humanity in those eyes. Dull and listless and lacking the purity and ferality of an angel. Dean drew back, giving the smaller man room.

"Easy. Take it easy." Dean coaxed, easing his cracked voice into a quiet, gentle tone.

"W... where are we?" He rasped.

"San Fran." Dean assured, settling his hands on the wheel.

"Why?"

Dean felt his stomach bottom out and a rock settle low in his gut. He hates when this happens. It's not often but every once in a while Castiel wakes with the glazed look of humanity in his eyes. Dean calmed himself internally and breathed, focusing and detaching himself to do this right.

"What's your name?" He asked gently.

"Cas... uh... Cas... Cas something..."

"Castiel. Your name is Castiel." Dean reminded him, slowly trying to coax him on.

"I was... I was fighting..."

"There was a war. We fought in it. We're still fighting it."

"Dean. Winchester. And Sam."

Pain constricts his throat to a point he almost can't breathe at the mention of his younger brother but he forces past it because as much as he loved and still loves Sam, Castiel is the one that needs him now. The one that's still with him.

"Right. What else? I know you know, I know it's there. Keep talking."

"I'm not human..."

"Angel. You pulled me out Hell." Dean roughly tugged his suit jacket off and shoved up the crisp white sleeve of his dress shirt, exposing his bicep and the brand marked into his shoulder. The perfect shape of a handprint, long healed and starting to fade a little. Castiel stared at the brand for a moment before gingerly laying his palm across the mark, their positions making it impossible for him to slot his fingers into place but he covered the burn with his own hand.

Dean feels something twist in the hollow of his chest, rubbing itself against the backside of his carved ribs. He stayed still until Castiel's hand slid from his arm.

"I rebelled."

"Yeah. You did. To try and stop Lucifer and stop Sam, remember?" Dean pressed as Castiel's eyes cleared and his breathing evened. "We're cleaning that mess up. The dicks want _us_ to do it. But... they're going to get tired of us someday and we're both going to die-"

"-and I'll go to Hell."

Dean's teeth slid together. "Which is why we're trying to find the Big Man, get you a pardon before that happens."

"I… I'm sorry, Dean." His voice was calm now.

"It's alright, Cas. It's not like you can help it or you're doing it on purpose. Just as long as it keeps coming back to you." He straightened his shirt and tugged his suit jacket back into place before flipping open the glove compartment and pulled out the cigar box, flipping it open and allowing Castiel to root into the cache of badges and paperwork until he extracted a small, modern badge declaring him a member of FBI. Dean picked out a matching one and they slipped them into their pockets.

"Ready?" Dean asked and Castiel nodded as they slipped out of the Impala, Castiel tossing the lap top onto the passenger seat and swung their doors closed and stepping around the Impala. They fell into perfect step with each other and started for the congestion of people... and _not_ people. He glanced at Castiel, looking too much like that first year they met. In a suit and the tan trench coat sweeping behind him.

At least Castiel was a better FBI agent now, the man couldn't bring himself to lie, it wasn't in his nature but they balanced it out. Dean did most of the lying and Castiel did most of speculation and questioning. It worked and it got the job done, though Dean didn't expect this Site to be much different than the others.

He steeled himself for starting to cut into the crowd. "Alright! Move aside! Move! Let's go!" He barked and shoved his shoulder into what looked like an Orion or at least a half breed. Castiel close on his heels.

"C'mon! Let's GO! FBI!" Dean snapped louder and slowly the crowd crushed back and away, making enough room for himself and Castiel to step up to the yellow caution laser and the officer standing watch over it. The crowd grumbled in interest and dissent.

"Can I help you?" The mechanized officer asked in a chattered, inhuman voice. At least the Five-Oh was easier to deal with these days. Machines were only as smart as the people that programmed them. And while the geeks and freaks that built the friggin' things probably won Nobel Prizes, they weren't officers. A real police officer would have given him a little trouble, wanted to see his badge up close and questioned him, the machine only looked... or at least he think it looked at the flash of a badge, listened to the false names he gave for himself and Castiel, before disengaging the yellow laser and letting them onto the closed off scene and cranked the boarder back up after them.

Sometimes... Hell who was he kidding, almost _all_ the time, newer wasn't better. Castiel and Dean surveyed the Site carefully, looking over the cracked and up heaved pavement, noting the human investigators and control personnel. Vehicles, personal and metro that were either flipped over or half crushed by the force of what had happened at the Site. He notices a few dead civilians but not many, whatever had happened had been powerful enough to chase them off as well as blast the glass from every window in a mile radius. He'd been nervous about the Impala's tires rolling over the debris.

He was sure they would have considered it a terrorist attack, it was a big city and desperately close to the Starfleet Campus, who wouldn't want to take that out, especially after that whole Nero cluster practically decimated them. It was weird to hear about a pandemic threat that he actually hadn't been involved in or expected to stop. That had been some blonde kid named Kirk's job.

And he'd done it. _Well... and _got intergalactic recognition for it. No one seemed to bring up to him over and over again that he hadn't saved that other planet, to lay the pressure on and guilt him into continuing...

Must be nice not having angels haunting you like a bad infection.

But they'd been calling the Site a miracle, seemed like religious freaks had gotten there first instead of the sociopathic conspirtists. Made sense because it _did_ happen on the steps of the oldest church in the city. The great, stone cathedral towered over head, the single circular stained glass window in the front the sole survivor of the blast.

"It was a battle."

_When was it wasn't?_ Dean looked over his shoulder at Castiel. The former angel's eyes were fixed on the twisted and broken form of a slender framed Asian man, his eyes half closed and he looked almost peaceful save for the fact that he looked pale and sickly, his skin a frosted blue and lips purple... as if he'd drowned in very deep water.

But like it was will all the corpses of angelic vessels there was no blood, only the burned shadow of wings scared into the asphalt.

"Iophiel. A scholar." Castiel said quietly and crossed to where the body laid, Dean following at a distance and standing protectively near when Castiel knelt next to the dead man and laid a hand lightly on his shoulder.

They may have all been dicks and looked at him with disgust and only didn't kill him because they believed they'd punished him enough by stripping him and leaving him to rot among humans... leaving him with Dean... and used him like a cheap homing device to track Dean but they were still his family, his brothers and sisters and Castiel mourned the loss of every angel.

And there were three here. Dean looked towards the cracked and crumbling stairs where another angel lay dead, cold and blue like the Asian man. That angel, a slender, pretty black woman with a mass of curly black hair. The shadow of her wings spread akimbo on the stairs and looked larger than Iophiel's had been, maybe she was a higher rank.

"There, Nuriel." Castiel motioned towards the woman on the stairs. "The angel of hailstorms. And Aftiel an angel over the twilight hours..."

Dean blinked in surprise at the third body some yards away. The vessel had clearly been a half breed, Andorian, maybe... it was hard to see the human genetics bleeding through the pale blue skin and white hair. Since when were xenos devout, true-believers? Dean shrugged one shoulder and dismissed it. Military changed their camos to the landscape, guess angels were keeping up with the 'brave new world' theory. Didn't matter anyway, it wasn't the vessel that mattered, it was the angel. The Andorian hybrid had the same imprinted shadow of wings around him.

"More of your old Garrison?" Dean asked. "Angel on angel crime?"

Castiel's Garrison had gone rouge in the first year, turned to follow Uriel and Lucifer. The only angels who refused had been slaughtered, except for Castiel. The rouges weren't quite angels and they weren't quite Fallen; they ran in a pack like mercenaries and made it their business to act in Lucifer's name and kill any loyalist angels they crossed.

"No... What did this was very old... it came from very deep in the Pit." Castiel said quietly. Dean stiffened.

"Thought only angels could kill other angels. You telling me that Hell's got a new big bad that can clip the Host's wings?" Dean felt the tension winding between his shoulders.

"No. This was the work of an angel."

That didn't relax Dean at all. "One of the Fallen?"

"One of the first to follow Lucifer into the Pit. Nothing else is this strong save for an Archangel."

"_Great_... last time it was a Fallen both of us almost died!" Dean bent and hissed his dissent to Castiel. "_And_ that town still got wiped off the map."

"I am well aware of what happened, Dean. I was present." Castiel deadpanned.

"Well this is just _peachy_... don't think they'll want to handle it themselves? Leave us out of it? Revenge and all that? It did just ice three angels."

Castiel didn't reply, he didn't know, obviously, wasn't like he was still tuned into angel radio. Even when he was still part of the Host they didn't tell the Angel of Thursday much. Dean sighed and rubbed a hand across his eyes.

"Can you tell which one?"

"Possibly a Watcher... " As he spoke Dean twitched nervously because in those long night hours that neither he nor Castiel could sleep the diminished angel had told him about the First War in Heaven, told him the names of the Fallen and his brothers and sisters still aloft and all their steads. Dean _knew_ these names, knew who they were as intimately as Castiel had known them before their Fall into the Pit. He knew what they meant.

And none of it was good.

Castiel continued speaking quietly when a human investigator stepped passed them."... Arakiel... maybe Samyaza. If it not a Watcher it is Focalor."

Dean went very still. _"The Griffin?"_

"It is probable."

Dean let out a shuddering breath and buried his hands into his hair, tugging at the short strands before letting them slide down and grinding the heels of his hands into his eyes. He let out a shaky, broken noise before steeling himself. "What about your dad?"

"Father was here." Castiel shrugged one shoulder. Dean nodded, he felt the hum, the electricity in the air that crackled in the wake of something more powerful than angels. More feral.

"I do not believe He was a part of the conflict. Merely in the vicinity felt the deaths of these three and came when it was done to mourn them. Lay His hand on them-"

"So he's long gone." Dean sighed.

"Yes." The sound came like an arrow being pulled from a wound. Sickly and pained. Castiel looked numb and tired. It was already getting harder and harder for Castiel to bounce back from each near miss. It was a bucket of ice water down Dean's spine when he considered that Castiel might inot/i rebound one day soon. That his faith might finally crack and that shadow of a creature Dean had seen, been shown, might pop up. The Castiel's whose pupils were dilated with narcotics and alcohol and voice full of jokes but no humor.

Dean shook himself. No. It wouldn't happen. He rubbed his eyes. "Alright... so let's figure out what's so important that they had a brawl _here_. Bet you pie it has something to do with the church."

"A relic, maybe... or a soul inside." Castiel rose to his feet and fell into step with Dean, walking along the edge of the lasered off area towards the steps of the cathedral.

"Lotta noise for just one soul."

"There have been longer and louder battles for singular souls before." Castiel cast him a look.

"I know. I know. A Legion of Heaven made war on Hell for forty years for me, I got it already." Dean shrugged his shoulders. "You're not a part of the club; you don't have to guilt me."

"Sometimes it seems necessary." Castiel responded back and Dean rolled his eyes. "Dean, let us tread lightly. I am unsure if it has moved on."

Dean only nodded and let his hand slide around to the small of his back and graced over the Colt 1911 tucked into his waist band. It wouldn't do much damage against a Fallen, but a sure shot in the eye might slow it down enough to get away. Might...

Dean and Castiel carefully climbed the ruined steps of the cathedral, both taking special attention to avoid stepping on Nuriel or the imprinted shadow of her wings. Dean had nearly flinched every time he saw an investigator or first responder walk casually across the wing imprints, their heels digging into the stained asphalt.

They could show some kind of respect.

The Hunter and the diminished angel crossed into the shadow and much cooler air of the cathedral, it was void of personnel, obviously cleared and considered unremarkable. It looked pretty typical to Dean. The rows of carved wood pews, large stone stands supporting ornate metal basins full of water. There were tall support beams made of carved stonework and wrought precious metals in the shapes of cherubic angels and flowers. The walls had the Stations of the Cross of painted plaster and gilded frames. Crucifixes and gaping holes were there had been stained glass windows. The floor was littered with colored glass and splintered wood. Further along there were alcoves of Covenants, one with a massive marble statue of the Virgin Mary and the other a similar statue depicting Saint Patrick, the alcoves were surrounded by tables supporting rows of prayer candles, most snuffed out from the blast.

The marble statue of Christ had a real wood cross as it towered over the Alter at the front of the old church, gilded gold and silver wrought into the design. Dean glanced up at the dais but drew his attention away as he and Castiel carefully walked along the middle aisle. Their boots echoed in the empty space.

Both kept their eyes scanning, roving trying to pick out the forgotten relic that may have been left in the middle of combat, or maybe someone hiding under a pew at the sound of holy warfare. Halfway down the aisle Dean sighed aloud and settled his hands on his hips.

"Looks like a bust Cas... thing must have got away with what he wanted." Dean muttered then tensed at the sound of feathers cutting through air. He and Castiel spun on their heels and braced for a fight but relaxed at the sight of the petite woman standing at the end of the pews. She was small and slender and stood at a military at ease position. Her hands folded in the small of her back.

Her hair was a russet color like dried blood and her eyes a brilliant and sorrowful viridian that was near Dean's own eye color, enough so that she looked kin to him. She had a pretty heart shaped face that was marred by the ugly, jagged remains of a scar running from her hairline, down over an eye and to the corner of her mouth. She wore a fitting black tank top and a pair of military camo cargos of gray, black and white. They were tucked into laced up combat boots. There was a watch around her wrist and a slim chain supporting a set of military dog tags around her throat.

"Abaddon." Castiel breathed and the she-angel's lips quirked up just slightly.

"Hey fellas." She drawled in a southwestern accent, she physically relaxed and started towards them.

"Hey Abby." Dean greeted and she gave him a slight and genuine smile.

Abaddon. The Angel of War and Michael's right hand girl. The one angel, other than Castiel, that Dean had a remote fondness for. Abaddon was a soldier, she'd been made on the battle field with a cut of Michael's Grace. Abaddon made sense, she was bound to her work, her position in upholding the laws of war in all its forms and she followed the orders laid out before her by the only angel that ranked higher than her in her Legion, Michael. In the archangel's absence Abaddon controlled his Legion, she was intimately familiar with each angel in her secondary command, from the grunts right up to the Ypolochagos, Lochagos and Tagmatartchis. And she commanded them to their nature, solid and stead fast and if Dean had an Antistratigos he had to follow he could hope they would be like Abaddon. She never asked more of them than she was willing to give herself. This was probably why she stood as Michael's Antistratigos, his Lieutenant General. And while she was an excellent leader and warrior she did not act blindly, like any well trained soldier she thought for herself and all her commands and orders rung with the concern and consideration of the welfare of her soldiers.

Dean remembered the first time Abaddon came to him and Castiel. She'd actually knocked on the motel door and bargained shameless for five minutes of Dean's time and in those five minutes, Dean's hand poised over a blood banishing spell, Abaddon had earned a little of his respect and a little of his acceptance. It was obvious that Michael had sent her himself to talk to Dean, to 'show him how angels really were' and make amends for the bad examples Uriel and Zachariah had been and to see if she could gently coax Dean into standing as Michael's vessel.

She won more of his respect when after his first refusal she did not persist and in all the time that she had continued to come to the Hunter and diminished angel she never asked it of him again and only spoke on the matter if Dean himself brought it up.

Dean constantly told Castiel that once he'd gotten his mojo back to get his ass transferred into Michael's Legion and Abaddon's command.

"Guess you've already heard." Dean crossed his arms over his chest and cocked his head slightly at the Antistratigos.

"Ya know I can feel the vibrations of every battlefield as it comes into existence. Otherwise I would not have heard of it for some time, they were a part of Ramiel's Legion. They'll mourn bit longer. I expect ya already have a theory?"

"A Fallen, freed from very deep in the Pit. One of the Watchers-" Castiel provided.

"Or Focalor... Cas thinks that if it's not one of the Watchers then it's him."

Abaddon let out a sigh that sounded too much like a warrior exhausted of combat. "If it is the Griffin then we have a very big problem."

That's was how Abaddon won Dean's loyalty. _We_. When the term had first blossomed from the Angel of War Dean had sneered, thinking it was another detached reference, when they said 'we' it meant their mess, Dean's job to run clean up. When Abaddon said 'we' she meant _we_ Dean had nearly lost his voice in shock when Abaddon went along with them on that first mission, step for step, and took Dean's orders. When Abaddon came to them with a mission or Hunt that needed attention she went with them, stayed at their sides, fought with them and protected them when she could and used the word _we_ in sincerity.

Dean let a sigh of relief slip through his teeth and Abaddon's lips quirked.

"Ya expected to deal with somethin' like this completely alone did ya?"

"It's been turning out to be one of those days, Abby." Dean rubbed a hand through his hair and let his shoulders slump slightly.

Abaddon's head tilted until Dean was faced with the scarred side of her visage. The brilliant jade eye was slightly clouded, half blind. Dean never understood why it was that she turned the damaged part of her sight on him in moments like this. Was it meant so be some kind of metaphor of Justice or deeper sight? Was she even really lacking the sight in the damaged eye, or was it just the vessel and Abaddon could easily see beyond it?

"As are the times, Dean." Abaddon said gently, her tone coaxing and soothing; like the sounds of a soldier easing a fallen comrade into oblivion of death. "As all soldiers have seen."

"They're more often than not, Abaddon." Castiel spoke just as quietly, almost pleadingly.

"I know... but ya must go on-"

"For how long Abby!?!" Dean barked suddenly, his voice echoing in the cathedral, rattling the last of the colored glass. "It's been two hundred and fifty years! What's the point!?"

"Ya honestly believe I agreed with this?" Abaddon growled, her hackles rising and the very stone of the cathedral shivered. "No soldier is meant to face combat for eternity. Not the worst of them... and most certainly not one of the best. Ya were not meant for this Dean. What they have done to ya is unjust. I had never known my kin could be cruel, ya cain't imagine the shock it was. I never wanted this for ya..."

Dean's eyes narrowed, looking at Castiel for a moment before casting his jade eyes back to the she-angel. "What the Hell does _that_ mean, Abby?"

"Dean. I have had a hand in the making of all creatures that will or would see battle. Charlemagne, Richard the Lionheart, Dwight Eisenhower, David Pataerus, Christopher Pike, some of my greatest works and designs. Then there was Alexander and never had I come so close to perfection before... and yet Michael came to me baring this thin', this gentle, flutterin' creature that was never meant for the field of fray. Laid it before me and told me, 'make me a soldier to rival yer Alexander... make me a soldier fit to carry my wings'... I pounded the steel of that soul for a thousand years, laid into it bits of my own Grace, drenched it in Bloodlust and Loyalty, poured into it Instinct and Wisdom, laced its heart with gold sparks of Michael's Sword. I fostered it and molded it, never once changin' its original nature until it was fit and bore it onto a small angel that I knew not the name of..."

Abaddon's eyes cast towards Castiel and the sapphire eyes bored into viridian, lifting his chin.

"... The seraphim on whose day he would be born. Told him the name of a bloodline strong enough to turn out the soul. I warned him, as I warned Michael, that the soul was-"

"Was not meant to be long of the world." Castiel spoke quietly and carefully, repeating words long dulled with age. "Thirty, possibly forty years and it was meant to be done. His spirit would not hold beyond that. Thirty or forty years and he must come Home."

Abaddon nodded, blinking slowly, almost lazily. Tilting her head so the glazed and clouded eye was turned towards them. "And yet... yer spirit never faltered, never wavered. Not even in Hell. Not when they laid this curse on ya. Dean, ya have surpassed anything I would have _ever_ expected of ya... _or_ of Alexander."

Dean felt a very slight flush cross his cheeks, making the faint sprinkling of freckles across his nose stand out. It'd been a long time since he'd been praised by anyone other than Castiel. Not sincerely. Hearing it from Abaddon, someone he actually respected, it... it was _different_... especially when he was compared to Alexander the Great.

The Angel of War often mentioned Alexander, talked about his tactics and intelligence, his hand and mind for war and conquest. She never fully praised the ancient warrior, more spoke of him in passing or quoted him. While the Antistratigos never spoke before of her hand in creating Alexander, or in Dean for that matter, it was clear that she'd had a fondness for Alexander.

"The sin of Pride does not remotely cover what I feel for ya."

The words were a shock so deep that Dean paled.

"Ya must go on, Dean. Hold fast. Ya have not faltered this long. This... _injustice_ that has laid on ya was meant to break ya Dean, break yer mind, body and will. Hold fast."

Dean swallowed a deep breath before letting the air slip from his chest with a hollow rattle before nodding jerkily. And Abaddon nodded her own approval and cast her eyes towards Castiel, having some silent, heartbeat long conversation with the diminished angel before the azure eyed man dipped his head.

Dean cleared his throat in the awkward hesitation. At least it was awkward for _him_. Experience was more than the Hunter needed to know that angels didn't take to the world the same way humans did. Things like awkward moments and personal space didn't compute. They were beings made of pure power and energy, they shared thoughts and Grace as easily as humans shook hands. The closest thing they came to real intimacy was the brush of wings. Castiel had described it as kin to something like sharing breath and blood and souls all at once and that it wasn't done lightly.

"Well, after that little reveal what the Hell do we do about this Fallen?" The Hunter grumbled and ran a hand through his hair.

"It would seem the wisest course of action is to be positive of its identity, could lead to an explanation of what exactly it was that was needed so badly, that it crawled its way out of the Pit." Castiel cocked his head to the side. "Can you tell who it was, Abaddon?"

"No. It's freshly out of the Pit, the scent of Hell is too thick on it to know which Watcher it may be. Let's pray it's not Focalor. Yer both bone weary. Go. Rest. I'll see if Ramiel knows or if there was a survivor of this battle that can describe it; I'll be back when I have the name."

"Thanks, Abby." Dean sighed and slumped a little. The Antistratigos dipped her head slightly as the two squeezed passed her and started back down the aisle between pews and shattered glass. Castiel faltered and twisted.

"Sister?"

Abaddon cocked her head to look over her shoulder at him.

"You know He was here."

The Angel of War only blinked lazily once and dipped her head slightly before turning away from him. Castiel watched her back for another moment before following Dean dutifully out of the cathedral.

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**A/N: So the first part of four. Kinda Dean/Cas if you look through slash glasses. Whatcha'll think?**


	2. Chapter 2

**Part Two of Four. This was betaed by the lovely ~Sierra Nichole, she rocks! Worship her!**

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**Summary: **_**It wasn't real...**_

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**Salt of the Earth**

_**"It would be absurd if we did not understand both angels and devils, since we have invented them…"**_

_-East of Eden; __**John Steinbeck**_

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_**Saint Patrick's Cathedral, San Francisco, California**_

_**Stardate 2260,**_

_**September 13 **_

_**0942 Hours**_

**...**

McCoy couldn't tear his eyes away from the scene. There was an ugliness, a raw pain in his gut over it. The shadows of feathers, pale blue of the dead's flesh. It was consuming but… there was a power here. A rippling effect, like after it all some great warmth had tried to heal the earth around the devastation.

_Miracle..._

It wasn't the right word. There were bodies, frozen and twisted on the ground. It couldn't be a miracle. People didn't die in miracles. The air wasn't torn from their throats and their lungs flooded, they weren't tossed onto the sidewalk and stairs of hollow ground were the pavement was blackened into the shapes of wings, like discarded tin toys.

The name did not fit. The spiritual creatures that looked on the scene first found no other name for the sight. But McCoy would not call it a miracle when life slipped away... much less, if he must believe the akimbo shadow wings, the lives of three angels.

McCoy swallowed thickly and stared at the slender Asian man, his neck snapped back into an odd angle, eyes glazed and half lidded a color of brown so dark and pure it was nearly black. He barely heard the hum of the yellow caution lasers or the crowd speculating around him.

"This ain't natural." McCoy muttered and Kirk choked slightly.

"Not natural? Course it's not, there's a bunch of dead _angels_ on the ground." The blond sputtered and sniffed, rubbing his nose. His tone almost mocking on the word for the seraphim.

McCoy rolled his neck so he looked dead on at Kirk. "Little respect?"

"It's a hoax or something, Bones. Relax." Kirk shrugged and lifted his chin to see over the crowd and look towards the cathedral, a few moments of looking into the gaping wounds of broken windows and stone work of perched angels and demons a slight smirk crossed his lips. Kirk reached out, grabbed a handful of McCoy's sleeve and yanked, dragging the doctor after him.

The older man jerked back, breaking contact. "What?" he growled.

"C'mon, bet there's a way in through the back of the church." Kirk started to weave his way through the people.

"Jim!" McCoy snapped, reaching to try and catch the captain but only ended with a handful of Cardassian flesh. McCoy apologized absently before shoving after the other man. "Jim!"

"Keep up with me Bones!" Kirk barked back over his shoulder and broke from the crowd into a trot in the shadow of the cathedral. McCoy sprinted after him, grabbing the captain's shoulder and hauled him back.

"Jim! Stop!"

"C'mon, Bones." Kirk grinned, a lopsided quirk of his lips. "It's not like they roped it off."

"What is this, Jim?" McCoy snapped. "Why do you want into a damn murder site?"

"Technically, it's not a murder site yet." Kirk ducked away and jogged along the wall of the cathedral. McCoy hot on his heels. The captain stalked long until he found a propped open back door and a flight of stairs. Grinning wolfishly, Kirk danced his way down the stairs into the refinished basement and office level of the cathedral. The sound of his boots muffled by thick, wine colored carpeting. His steps slowed and he stalked along the plain, cream colored hall, quirking his eyebrow at the labels screwed into the plaster next to simple doors.

McCoy kept a clipped pace a step behind, the tension was wrought tight between his shoulders. There was a weight in this building, it was pressing in, down from all sides and threatening to swallow him up. Something was here... or had happened here... something far deeper and more powerful than the shadows etched into the asphalt and the old growth tree outdoors. The air was almost hard to breath; it tasted like heated metal and salt... like blood. The air tasted like blood.

McCoy felt deep in his gut the instinct to run, bolt and get away as quickly as possible. It felt as if the blessing that had been cast on this hallowed ground centuries before had been roughly and haphazardly ripped away. And whatever it was might still be in this once sacred place.

"Jim. Jim we need to get out of here. Somethin's not right." McCoy hissed, even as he acknowledged it the weight settled deeply on his chest and snaked around his throat, tightening and gaining weight.

"Bones, seriously. Stop being so paranoid. You think there's always something wrong..." Jim sighed and started up a set of stone and wood stairs that led in a slow spiral up into the main hall and floor. Kirk put his shoulder against the heavy wood of a door and shoved it open and stood back to let Bones into the preparation room that was only separated from the main hall by a thin wall and a door behind the alter. Jim trotted happily across the unremarkable room and through to the towering ceiling and ornate main room. McCoy dipped his head respectfully as he crossed the dais and quickly stepped down to the main floor and the aisle between the pews. Jim lingered, strolling casually under the depiction of Christ and his cross mounted on the wall.

Here, in the hall, McCoy felt his skin tightening and crawling and the weight tightened around his throat. He choked and broke into a fit of coughing at the suffocating weight of the shadows in the room full of light. The destroyed windows letting the sun filter through the dust motes and pulverized glass still hanging in the air.

It was here... might have stood in the very spot he was now.

"Bones? Bones?! Christ!" Kirk rushed down to his side, resting a hand lightly on McCoy's back. "C'mon Bones! Breathe!"

The doctor tried desperately to draw air back into his lungs but it only tasted and smelled of more blood and ash. He felt Kirk grip his arm and haul him around into one of the pews, forcing his back to straighten, taking some of the pressure of his torso and air rushed into his lungs. He choked on it, it still tasted like hot metal but at least it was moving through him.

McCoy's head fell back and he rasped, his throat aching and tight but he was breathing, his heart began to slow and calm.

"God, Bones. A panic attack?" Kirk's voice flickered, wavering slightly and he sounded unsettled. The doctor didn't quite register it; he focused on calming his heart and breathing. His mind was still spinning.

The sound of a set of heavy wooden double doors opening and footsteps echoed in the room. McCoy felt Kirk tense, his fingers tightening in his shoulder. He heard the draw of air, as if Kirk was going to call for help.

A new rush of power rippled over McCoy at his back, coming from the intruders. Blood rushed, thundering in his ears and his breathing hitched again. He wasn't sure if it was the corruption that had swallowed up the cathedral, but he wasn't taking any chances. McCoy grabbed a fistful of Kirk's flesh and shirt and hauled him down, sliding to the floor and pressing his back into the pew. He slammed his palm so hard across Kirk's mouth the captain's head snapped back and looked like he'd get whiplash.

McCoy figured he'd also have bruises, the way his fingers dug into Kirk's jaw. McCoy pressed his own hand over his mouth and nose, stifling his own breathing. His heart was thundering wildly, blood pulsing in his ears. He heard Kirk shifting and felt him twitching slightly but the smaller, younger man didn't fight him, only consciously tried to slow his breathing and twisted sideways to try and see over the pew.

"Looks like a bust, Cas... thing must have gotten away with what he wanted."

The voice was raspy, like a rattle filled with sand and broken gravel. It may have been deep and rich once but now was damaged beyond repair. McCoy shut his eyes and stayed still. In the quiet the sound of wings cutting through air echoed in the hall. There was a feeling of displaced air and a new, thicker and heavier weight settled in the atmosphere, a new presence burst into being. The smell of ozone overpowered the scent of blood.

There was a tense moment of silence then a breath and a second voice, low and raspy by nature, spoke.

"Abaddon."

McCoy's heart stopped cold in his chest. He knew that name. It rushed back to him from his childhood, sprung from the slender pages of the Bible about the end of humanity, about a world washed in fire and disease, about a second coming of the Great Fallen, the pages devoted to the apocalypse.

Abaddon. Abaddon the Angel of War. The Destroyer. Abaddon that flew on wings drenched in blood. Abaddon was in this room.

_No... _

McCoy squeezed his eyes shut, feeling salt and water prickling at the edges and he prayed, begged that the creature was only named for the angel. Maybe a xeno that had crossed the name by accident or it meant something else on a different planet.

"Ya know I can feel the vibrations of every battlefield as it comes into existence. Otherwise I would not have heard of it for some time, they were a part of Ramiel's Legion. They'll mourn bit longer..."

_Oh God... no..._

A tear slid down McCoy's cheek and he barely heard the rest of the conversation. More names dropped. Fallen. Watchers. Focalor. Castiel. Dean. The fear deepened, swallowing the doctor until he was near numb. He shivered violently, hoped and prayed he and Kirk were too small, to unimportant to be noticed as Biblical story after story slammed into him, long buried in the earliest days of his religious education. The books written about creatures that couldn't be; demons and shapeshifters, witches and ghouls and creatures that were made into plotless horror movies. They weren't real. They couldn't be real. They were only taught because they were a part of the Bible, you weren't supposed to take the apocalyptic gospel seriously, it was just the strange writings of a Prophet centuries ago that held enough weight to be put into the Book.

_It wasn't real..._

"Sister... you know He was here."

There was a ringing silence as the footsteps died away, McCoy felt Kirk shift, twisting but the doctor dare not move. There had been no departure of Abaddon.

For a long moment McCoy felt as if he would choke on his own bile. Then a single, slow and deliberate foot step echoed in the quiet.

McCoy felt his heart stop again and next to him Kirk went very still.

Slowly the creature started to weave through the pews, walking slowly up and down with only the sound of boots hitting stone. Each step was sent a shiver through McCoy until he felt like he was near convulsing. It came closer, almost strolling casually until they echoed from the space between their pew and the one behind it.

_Keep goin'... please... keep goin'..._

The steps stopped. Not a hitch or a hesitation, a full out stop. McCoy squeezed his eyes tighter shut and sat still and rigid. He daren't open his eyes, much less look up to where he knew the creature was looking down on them.

After a moment that lasted long enough for a single, terrified sob to slip through his clenched teeth and palm, then the steps resumed. Walking slowly behind them, so close McCoy could feel the heat through the wood of the pew into his back.

A sensation slid across his skull, sharp and solid and so real McCoy trembled.

It was feeling of a feathered wing tip dragging through his hair, crossing his crown and passing over his brow. He felt the quills of individual feathers tangle in his hair and eyelashes as they swept passed and just as suddenly as the sensation was there it was gone again.

The footsteps echoed, moving away until they stopped and the sound of wings stroking the air filled the hall and the weight of Abaddon's presence dissipated.

McCoy hesitated for a moment longer before choking out another half strangled sob before he slumped against the pew and tried desperately to breathe, his hands falling slack to the floor, damp with his own and Kirk's sweat and saliva.

"Bones? Bones? Easy, man, what happened? What was that all about? Who was that? Bones? McCoy, c'mon! Snap out of it!"

"True... Jim... " McCoy's teeth rattled as he shook through his recovery."Jim... every word of it was true..."

"What? What they said? You know what they were talking about?"

"The apocalypse..." McCoy rolled his head to the side and noticed a Bible abandoned in their pew, he stretched, drawing it near and pressing it to his lips.

"Apoca... like the end of the world?" Kirk rasped, McCoy could almost hear the younger man's skin paling in his voice.

Slowly and stiffly he flipped through the thick book, moving blindly through it towards the end then set it on the floor, the pages bent to the title and beginning of the last chapters. Kirk twisted his neck to read the titles.

"_The Winchester Gospel_?

…

_**Sunlit Days Motel, San Francisco, California**_

_**Stardate 2260**_

_**September 13 **_

_**1503 Hours**_

Castiel was sleeping again. Dean glanced at him, the smaller man curled up around his core. Castiel's arms were wrapped tightly around his stomach, fingers dug into his sides and knees drawn up. A battered and faded copy of _Watership Down_, spine long broken, open on the mattress near his elbow. Castiel's breathing was slow and even, soothing, a steady rhythm that for some strange reason reminded Dean that_ he's _alive. Not the other way around.

Dean watched Castiel's back rise and fall, slowing his own breathing to make the rasps of his bunkmate in the silent room the only noise. A steady calming pattern in the crush of surreality around them.

Probably the reason why the sound of wings filling the rented room was so easy to hear. Dean barely blinked and the russet haired she-angel was perched lightly on the edge of the mattress at Castiel's back. She watched her sibling for a moment before stiffly and awkwardly reaching out to thread her fingers into the man's hair, combing through it with an efficiency that teetered stiltedly towards gentleness and affection. Castiel didn't stir and Dean turned back to the confining space of the bathroom.

Abaddon wasn't the best when it came to being comforting or light handed. She wasn't designed for it, literally. But sometimes she tried, tried to be gentle and soothing. It seemed kind of desperate when she did and Dean wondered if the Antistratigos was sick of being the Angel of War, that she'd like to resign to something like watching over rainstorms or librarians or whatever patron assignments they gave angels that weren't cut out for battle.

Dean felt a kinship for it, if that's what it really was. So when Xena the Warrior Angel sat on the edge of their mattresses and pet her brother's hair while he slept or politely borrowed the dog eared Stephen King novel from Dean to read the Hunter kept any comments to himself.

Dean finished brushing his teeth, swilled a mouthful of water and spit into the sink. He wiped his lips on the back of his hand then scrubbed the back of his hand across the thigh of his jeans before walking into the main room of the rented room.

"Got a name for us, Abby?" Dean asked in a hushed voice. He wanted Castiel to stay undisturbed as long as possible. He moved, soft footed, across to the spindly legged, metal table and chairs set up under the window. The laptop, ancient by standards, was open and humming quietly on one corner next to discarded wrappers from an impromptu brunch. Dean ghosted his fingers over the touch pad and the darkened screen blinked onto a search website. His hand poised over the keyboard and waited for a name he knew wasn't going to improve him mood. Didn't matter which one, he just hop-

"Focalor."

_Damn_

Dean's hand settled on the edge of the metal and turned white knuckled, the Hunter let out a breath, it was exhausted and broken, Hell it was almost painful.

"One of Ramiel's slipped away from the Griffin. He was too young to know Focalor but described him well enough." Abaddon continued quietly.

Dean sighed again. "Is he alright? The angel?"

"He'll heal. Near had a wing torn from him. More worried 'bout his mental state."

"Why?"

"It's not easy. Lookin' on the Great Fallen... much less one of the archdemons. Especially for the fledglin's, they're barely children."

"Glad to know things have gotten to the point you guys are using child soldiers." Dean snarled.

"They are young but they ain't helpless, Dean."

"Whatever Abby... is the Griffin like... a real griffin?" Dean rubbed the back of his neck and sank wearily into one of the chairs. "Am I going to need a broadsword or something?"

Abaddon only cast her jade eyes towards him for a moment before turning her attention back towards the door of the small room. It led out onto a narrow catwalk of the inn. Dean impulsively twisted and glanced towards the door, making sure that someone wasn't walking through it.

When he turned back, Abaddon was still sitting there. The Hunter actually felt a knot in his chest loosen. He was so used to angels disappearing when he turned his back, when Abaddon stayed or Castiel stayed it soothed him a little.

"Any clue why?" He asked, drawing her eyes to him.

"Why this city?" Dean nodded his head slightly. "Not sure. This city is utterly unremarkable."

Dean quirked his lips. That's how it worked most of the time. Big cities, renowned for art and architecture, famous figures and historical events didn't hold candles to pin pricks on the map when it came to importance. Gateways into Hell, places of angelic resurrection, battles, seals, the door to Lucifer's cage all were and happened in Nowheresville, America.

"Yeah." He agreed quietly.

"Other than a few souls with the potential to be vessels and a Nephilim, there's nothin' here... maybe it was the presence of our Father that drew him." She shrugged one shoulder.

Dean twitched at the word 'Nephilim', but typically the angelic half-breeds kept to themselves and stayed underground. He sighed and looked towards Castiel. "Abby... think we'll find him?"

"I hope ya do. I'll tell ya what, I'm sick of the civil war; I'm tired of fightin' my own kin."

Dean nodded, he remembered the Hell his life had been whenever the Winchesters were at each other's throats, especially when Dean was playing mediator... which was almost always. He sat in companionable silence with Abaddon and the sleeping Castiel for a moment.

"So what do we do?" Dean asked. The sound of Abaddon drawing deep breath lifted his eyes to watch the she-angel bend, reaching over her slumbering sibling and lift the battered book from the bedspread near Castiel's arm.

Dean's eyes drifted over the worn and faded image of a rabbit on the front as Abaddon absently turned to the first page.

"That is a difficult question, Dean." The Antistratigos murmured. "Focalor is... very old. Been in the Pit for a while. I have only looked in Focalor's eyes once, but never crossed steel or wings with him. I'm not sure he could be slain, even the possibility castin' him back is..."

The sigh sounded like one of Dean's own.

"He will not go quietly, Dean. If I'm the one to face him-"

"And that means?" Dean interrupted her, not liking the idea of any angel other than Abaddon accompanying the Hunt.

"Ramiel may make a blood claim, that Focalor spilled the blood of his Legion and his Legion will have the rights to him, then... I can do nothin'. I doubt it though. Ramiel is a dreamer, a diviner of visions; his Legion is made of... sandmen and seers."

If Dean didn't know better he heard a tinge of disgust and a twitch of envy in the Angel of War's voice.

"Ramiel will want blood, he is a soldier and an archangel but... he has lost some of his fiver and he'd happily pass the duty on to another, especially if he thinks if it'll get the job done cleaner and faster."

"You." Dean grumbled. "The Antistratigos."

Abaddon only lifted her hands, _Watership Down_ held in one, and let them fall in a way that told of both defeat and acceptance. "And yet he is an Archangel and I'm only a seraphim, and I'm at his command. Even as The Stratigos' second."

The Stratigos. The General. Michael. Abaddon never used his name. Never said 'Michael', only called him The Stratigos. Dean figured it was out of respect, he didn't like the idea of anything holding fear over Abaddon enough that she refused to speak its name, Prince General of the Host or not.

"And I'll take on the duty. Though I fear Focalor'll rip out every feather I have."

Dean flinched at the bitter humor in Abaddon's voice.

"Then we fight smart." Dean ground out and quickly typed in the Fallen's name and pulled up as much information on Focalor he could find... it wasn't much. "How long before Ramiel decides?"

"A day. Maybe a little more. I doubt he'll go to The Stratigos askin' for my service. Probably just take it."

"And get you killed."

Abaddon shrugged one shoulder and looked down at the neat, small printed words of the first page of the novel in her hand and threaded the fingers of the other into Castiel's hair. Dean sighed heavily and turned his attention to the screen of the laptop and scanning the scarce information there with one viridian eye twitched back to try and keep an eye on the Antistratigos. His tongue itched to speak until he couldn't contain himself.

"You will have to admit, Abby, if we bag Focalor, we win forever."

"Until Lucifer." Abaddon wrinkled her nose just slightly as she turned the page of the novel and Dean felt himself deflating.

"Yeah... until Lucifer." Dean ducked his head slightly, gritting his teeth against the heavy silence he expected.

"After Lucifer _then_ we win forever."

Dean's lips quirked at Abaddon's words.

**...**

_**Saint Patrick's Cathedral, San Francisco, California**_

_**Stardate 2260 **_

_**September 13 **_

_**1334 Hours**_

Kirk had seen the doctor act and react to some of the highest stress situations in the known universe and never... _never_... had there been more than snarled curses, rolled eyes and complaints for a few hours to days afterwards.

Now... Kirk watched the older man tear through the shelves of antique, leather bound books, flipping them open and when they didn't yield what he was looking for tossed them impatiently to the floor with the sound of pages bending and spines cracking.

Slipping into a cathedral and walking around in its empty halls and spaces was one thing. It was rebellious but it wasn't dangerous, wasn't destructive. It may have lacked a little respect... but it wasn't tearing through the private, basement libraries bishops and monsignors, man handling books that were possibly centuries old.

McCoy hadn't been doing well from the second he stepped into the cathedral, the shallow breathing and pale pallor. Kirk had just figured it was a little of his fiend's southern raising getting to him, that all religious guilt taking hold.

The hyperventilating and panic attack had been frightening to a point it was sobering and Kirk's bottle of Johnny Walker Blue was still on the alter in the main hall. Then the panic at the intruders that Kirk was pretty sure were either delusional or fictional writers, all that talk about angels and a griffin, soldiers and legions and historical names, someone named Alexander and Pike's name, how the Hell had that slipped in.

That was another thing. Hell. They talked about Hell and the Pit and... well none of it made any sense.

But whatever it had been had pretty much turned McCoy catatonic at least for a little while, until they were all gone.

Now... now he was just in some kind of frenzy, Kirk sidestepped quickly to avoid a thick tome hurled roughly in at the general height of his knees. He was still holding the Bible, the pages turned to the _Winchester Gospel_. At least McCoy was acknowledging him, talking to him, whatever this... crisis was he wasn't too far gone. But _what_ McCoy was telling him...

"Some guy named Chuck?"

"Charles. Charles Shurley."

Kirk tried not to short, gritting his teeth a little. "Chuck... wrote a bunch of stories about these two guys that started, then fought off the Apocalypse and monsters and... and the Devil... and they put it in the Bible?"

McCoy grunted, taking a little longer to flip through the pages of one book before dropping it heavily to the floor. Kirk actually flinched when the leather connected with the carpet.

"And you're telling me those two guys and the chick_ are_ the people in the story-"

"It's not a story. It's scripture... and it's true." McCoy's voice hitched and it sounded like he was having a hard time believing it himself. "I never understood it, it didn't have an end. They never finished it, Makes sense now, it didn't end. They're _still huntin'_."

The doctor snarled and shoved three books of his way at a time with a bark of a noise that sounded like frustration. Kirk started to speak then drew back. He probably shouldn't encourage McCoy. Maybe if he stood back and let it run its course McCoy would settle down enough that he wouldn't need a psych evaluation. The sounds of flipping pages and creaking leather stilled and Kirk instantly looked up. McCoy had paused; he was looking blankly at a page in the book in his hands.

Kirk waited, gritting his teeth against speaking and hoping that maybe this was the break, that whatever it was that had snapped the doctor had caught up to his senses and was pulling him back.

Five minutes crawled by and McCoy stayed still, searching over the page, his eyes dulled and glassy in the artificial light. Kirk swallowed and spoke carefully, hesitantly to his friend.

"Bones..."

The man flinched at the nickname, as if Kirk had slapped him, not spoken, and the book tumbled from his hands, spilling onto the floor with a crush of old paper. He looked up at Kirk, he looked stricken, his pallor paling even further, a shiver rippled through him.

"Why are they here?"

Kirk's head jerked slightly and he looked at McCoy helplessly. "I don't-"

"They're angels, Jim. _Angels_." He let out a shuddering breath. "They're not supposed to be here. They were only here... they'd only still be here 'cause... Lucifer...."

The last word was barely a crackle of a whisper. A panicky, flutter of a noise.

"Lucifer's still walkin' the earth..." The words were a shattered breath and Kirk couldn't help the shiver that raced through him. He shook it off, almost desperately, trying to get rid of the lingering chill the statement left.

"Bones, c'mon. You don't believe that. _Lucifer_? it's just a story. It's all a story-"

"Ya said ya looked at her! Ya _saw_ her!" McCoy accused.

"All I saw was some red head with a scar all down the side of her face. She wasn't anything special, Bones. She looked at me then looked at you a little then walked away, that was it." Kirk pleaded and McCoy snarled at him before shoving passed the younger man and charging down the hall towards the back exit of the cathedral. Kirk stumbled and rushed to follow.

"Bones! Bones, c'mon, where are you going?" Kirk quickened his pace when the doctor did. "Bones! You have to snap out of this!"

McCoy only broke into a jog, bounding up the steps and breaking out of the cathedral, slowing once he stepped out of its shadow. He gasped, sucking in air like he couldn't breathe and braced his hands on his knees. Kirk rushed to grab one of his arms and helped ease the man down to the earth, sitting and hunching on the asphalt McCoy shivered and panted.

"Bones-"

"The smell. It got to be too much."

"The smell?"

"It smelled like blood. Every room, all the walls, the books... like they were painted with it."

"Blood. Are you sure?" All Kirk had scented in the cathedral was the drifted remains of burned incense, old books and cold stone.

"Blood and metal." McCoy rasped and seemed to be collecting himself, his breathing was slowing and getting steadier, calming. Kirk could feel his pulse slowing. "It felt like he was still in there."

Kirk hesitated. "Lucifer?"

"Focalor."

"The guy they were talking about? The one that killed all those people on the sidewalk?" Kirk asked, hoping he was wrong, this was getting too strange, to elaborate for the young captain.

The doctor nodded. McCoy leaned back, setting his hands behind him and tilting his head back, sucking in the air lacking the oppression that had been in the hall and basement rooms and offices. "He was there, there before the angels came, he'll come back... didn't find what he was lookin' for..."

Kirk crouched next to his friend, the physical signs of panic were faded, McCoy seemed calmer, lucid and was actually relaxing. But the speech, still centered around demons and angels and some war...

"Bones how do you know?"

The older man twitched his head to the side and looked towards Kirk out of the corner of his eyes before letting his head drop until his chin touched his chest. The doctor shoved himself up and buried his face in his hands, threading his fingers in his hair.

"Bones?"

"I can hear 'em, Jim." McCoy shivered hard. "I can hear 'em talkin'..."

**...**

_**Sunlit Day Motel, San Francisco, California**_

_**Stardate 2260 **_

_**September 13 **_

_**1830 Hours**_

Dean blinked his eyes open slowly. He stayed still, listening to the world, drawing in the scents around him, assessing the confined space of their rented room.

There was a soft flutter of noise, a rhythmic steady chatter that seemed to come from all around him, but it was muffled by steel and plaster, glass and wall paper. The rumble was familiar and foreign at the same time.

Rain.

Dean couldn't remember the last time it rained. The world's climate was so altered since Dean's childhood that the common weather fluxes were all but nonexistent. The south and southwest looked like the Sahara. The Midwest was starting to look like scrub deserts but in the north it was still the north. Colorado and Montana, the Dakotas, they were still cool, still fresh with rain and snow. But for how long? Dean wondered if the day would come that he and Castiel chased the rain and snow into Canada and further. Rain this south, this far west, was rare.

Dean almost couldn't control the slight smile that played across his lips before he smothered it and rubbed a hand through his hair.

Carefully he rolled out of the bowed hollow of the mattress his weight and body heat had created. Socked feet hit the flooring soundlessly and the Hunter looked around the confined space. The copy of _Watership Down_ was still on the other bed, Castiel boots neatly sitting at the foot of the bed.

Dean cocked an eyebrow and rubbing his jaw slunk around the room towards the sliding glass doors that led out to a narrow porch looking out on a small park next to the motel, he pushed back the simple, beige curtain made of thick cloth and slipped out onto the narrow ledge. The bottom of his socks dampening on the cement but most of the rain cast off by the porch above. As he walked passed them the Angel of War on his right and the diminished Angel of Thursday on his left looked up. They were perched precariously in the seats of a set of cheap lawn furniture. Castiel sat limber and loose, his legs folding into a tight lotus position in his jeans and a loose, light cotton shirt.

Abaddon had been sitting more primly but it looked like Castiel had talked her into propping her feet up on the narrow rail around the porch, her ankles crossed and she'd slumped down into her seat a little.

Castiel had his hands wrapped around one of the motel's mugs, it was steaming happily and the sweet scent of vanilla, cinnamon and spices lingered in the air. There was a second, identical mug sitting on the concrete next to his chair that told a familiar story. Castiel had brewed two cups of the tea, coaxed Abaddon into a few sips before she turned it over to her sibling to finish.

Abaddon's arms were folded lightly over her stomach, once she was sure of Dean her viridian gaze cast out to the world around them. The sky was dark, churning steel clouds that bubbled and rippled above. A steady sheet of rain was falling, soaking the heated asphalt. There was a bite of a chill in the air but it wasn't enough and Dean ached for the Rockies.

The hum of the steady rainfall filled his ears, drowning out the sounds of San Francisco. The smell of rain and wet cement was refreshing and Dean filled his lungs to near bursting. He stood for a moment before turning and leaning back against the rail so he faced the other two, folding his arms loosely over his chest.

Castiel looked up at him sorrowfully, hesitating a moment before offering him the mug of still steaming tea. Dean reach out and lightly lifted it from the smaller man's slim hands, brought it to his lips for a short draw of the warm liquid, then handed it back. Castiel accepted it and pulled the mug towards his chest.

Abaddon's eyes stayed looking out on the rain soaked city. Dean swallowed hard before speaking, his tone quiet but rough.

"When?"

"A few hours ago." Abaddon said quietly. "Ramiel made himself perfectly clear."

"Woke _me_ up." Castiel murmured.

A beat of silence slipped through.

"I'll face Focalor."

Dean tensed. "You didn't say 'we' Abby."

"'Cause I'm goin' alone."

"No." Dean blinked and looked at Castiel, surprised that their voices had braided together so well. The pass of air that slipped through the Antistratigos' nose could have been considered a snort if it hadn't been so soft.

"Abby, you _know_ there's no way in Hell me and Cas are going to skip out on this and leave you alone." Dean spat, bristling. "And yeah, you'll probably lock us in the bathroom or something. Fine. But you have a whole _Legion_ to work with. Use 'em!"

"No."

"Abby-"

_"No."_

The artificial lights in the rented room burst in a crackle of glass and flash of sparked light. Dean and Castiel flinched instinctively, drawing back but Abaddon's eyes never left drenched skyline. A long tense moment hung between the trio before Abaddon's lips cracked open as she spoke, her voice low and the southern drawl deep and long.

"I could throw a thousand angels at Focalor... and they would all fall. He is an archdemon, Dean. He's one of our boogeymen." Abaddon drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I'll go alone and if it comes, then with my last breath I will take Focalor with me."

Dean and Castiel glanced at one another, tense and defiant of the Antistratigos' words. Dean grit his teeth and he felt some of his old resolve burn through his veins. There's no way that Dean was going to lose someone else. Castiel wasn't going to lose _another_ sibling.

"Friggin' angels and their kamikaze morbidity." He snarled. "Abby, you want to give me a minute with Cas?"

The Angel of War looked up at Dean out of the corner of her eye.

"You're not going to stop us from helping you, Abby. So either you include us in your whole 'take him with me' plan or you get out and me and Cas work out how we're going to save your ass on our own."

The Angel of War's jaw locked, grinding and her nostrils flared in silent breath. Dean grinned, he could see her crumbling.

"Face it, Abby. Technically it'll be easier for you to keep us alive."

Dean grinned seeing the Antistratigos making one of her very rare surrenders, ones she only seemed to make for Castiel and himself. He glanced at the smaller man and felt his own lips twitch up at the approval and relief in Castiel's azure eyes; it spoke volumes of gratitude towards the Hunter.

"Now. The plan?"

**...**

_**Starfleet Medical Offices, Starfleet Academy Campus, San Francisco, California**_

_**Stardate 2260 **_

_**September 13 **_

_**2354 Hours**_

McCoy was scrubbing his hands through his hair and rubbing the waxy smudges under his eyes. He wasn't sleeping… again; the soft rumbled whispers of disembodied voices lapping against him like lazy waves. He tried to tell himself it was the sound of the rain. When it rained back home he could hear chattering in the drops of water.

This had stopped. It'd _stopped_ when he was a _child_. This wasn't supposed to happen it'd been quiet for almost thirty years. He'd been alone in his head for thirty years. Wrapped around his wrists and fingers was a simple, wood bead rosary. They clacked quietly.

He sighed deeply and shakily, rasping each breath and calmed himself he focused on the noise, the sound of water running...

_Wait_

McCoy's head snapped up and he looked around. Rain didn't run. The gurgling, rippling noises were close, so close it felt like McCoy's ears were full of water. His heart lurched in his chest and he stiffly got to his feet, slinking passed the prone form of Kirk curled up on the edge of his bed.

The young captain had refused to leave him, stay up the whole night with him if he had to. Six hours in the alcohol in Kirk's system had caught up with him and the blonde had dozed off, leaving McCoy with the whispers and his own thoughts spinning wildly out of control.

The sound was coming from the small washroom of his dorm. His nerves strung tight McCoy slunk towards the door repressed a jump when it slid open obediently at his close proximity. McCoy felt his stomach bottom out, the small area of the floor was slick and wet, water was gushing from the narrow space of the sonic shower and pouring out in a steady fall from the sink. The doctor swallowed before gingerly stepping into the small space and looked around. He shivered violently once, the air was frigid. Every piece of metal in the room was frosted over and burning cold to the touch. McCoy stood back and watched as the mirror iced over, the air temperature dropping lower and lower until the glass cracked, making him flinch. There was a creaking and a groaning in the walls. For a second it drowned out the voices whispering around him.

McCoy shivered again and backed out of the small room, the water boiling out to follow him into his dorm, the warbling of pipes behind the walls following like the threatening growl of an unseen predator. The crushing weight of absolute fear and evil swallowed him up. The scent of blood started to flood into his nose.

"Jim..." McCoy rasped, he was shaking now.

Water. Water and ice. Focalor's choice of instrument. The pipes groaned loudly, near screaming in behind the metal and drywall. The air in the bunk was getting cold, metal was already icing over.

"Jim... JIM! Get up!" McCoy grabbed blindly for the younger man, gripping flesh and cloth he gave the captain a violent yank. Kirk yelped quietly and muttered something incoherent. "GET UP! We gotta get outta here!"

The sleep cleared from Kirk's eyes at the groaning inside the walls. "What the Hell is that noise?"

McCoy didn't let go of his fistful of flesh and fabric, hauling the smaller man up and dragging him towards the door. "Jim! Now!"

"Slow down there, boy. You're giving the impression that you're nervous."

McCoy whipped around at the strange voice, slinging Kirk to the side until the young captain was almost behind him.

The stranger lounged on the desk, leaning back on his hands and kicking his legs casually. His frame was long and limber, limbs thin enough that they looked far from strong. Dressed casually in a pair of faded jeans and a navy tee shirt that looked startlingly dark against his skin. The man looked like he could have been carved out of pale marble or maybe ice, as if he had never seen sunlight. Everything about his face was long and pointed, his hair was a blonde pale enough that bleached in the sun it could probably be white, tied back in a short pony tail. His eyes were a pale, glassy blue.

He looked young, or would have looked younger is his face wasn't twisted in an ugly grin that didn't look fit for a rabid animal. The taste of metal and sulphur bit at McCoy's senses, the room felt too small, like a stretched skin he was supposed to be wearing over his own. He was shaking hard.

"Then again-" The blue eyes rolled back into the man's head, exposing planes glassy white, pupiless and entirely inhuman, before they blinked back to the pools of blue. "-I supposed you have a reason to be."

McCoy slunk back, feeling Kirk move with him.

"Lookit you." The creature purred, a frantic grin crossing his face. "How did you hide? Almost forty years. Forty! Where were you?!"

McCoy flinched when the thing bounced off the desk and stalked forward.

"Went to your place of worship, and you weren't there. Seems like somebody fell off the wagon. Now, lookit you. All grown up. Little angelic half-breed just waiting to be plucked." The pale animal hummed in a coaxing way, clucking his tongue. "And a doctor! Oh the Boss will _love_ that, especially when you start putting souls on the rack. You'll put Alistair to shame, rest his twisted soul!"

McCoy choked, swearing he could taste his own bile and blood trying to drown him. "Focalor..."

"Got it in one!" The archdemon barked in laughter making the two Starfleet officers flinch and cringe away. The manic grin on Focalor's face dimmed a little and his eyes darkened, sobering as he crept forward. "But... where did you learn that?"

His footsteps sloshed in the soaked floor, a terrible groan made the walls shiver and a loud rush of water filled the room, the seams of the wall bowed out and flooded as the pipe behind them finally gave way.

McCoy carefully forced Kirk back, maneuvering and trying to get towards the door.

"You... you sly old dog. You overheard something? There's somebody here that knows my name..." Focalor's narrow chest hitched and heaved in a sickly, hissing laughter. "Who? C'mon... fess up, old boy. Who was it? One of my old brothers or sisters right? One of the ones still aloft?"

McCoy flinched at every word but locked his teeth. He wasn't going to give away the names he heard in the cathedral. He shivered violently when Focalor tsked, clicking his teeth and grinned wildly.

"Oh now, mum the word, huh? I would rein in that courage and stubbornness for a little later. I'm not even going to _start_ breaking you yet." Focalor leaned close and drew in a deep breath, literally _scenting_ McCoy and Kirk. A stomach turning grin crossed the archdemon's face. "Touched by an angel huh?"

McCoy's stomach clenched. Abaddon's wing, it's run across his head and hair.

"Smells like Michael. Can't be. He won't say yes... must be his girl soldier." Focalor grinned knowingly.

Behind his back McCoy wrenched and twisted his hand and wrist, trying to shake free the rosary without making too much noise and attracting the archdemon's attention. Finally he felt the beads and threat pool in his hand. Before Focalor could take another step forward McCoy ducked, sinking and soaking the rosary in water and roughly flung it at the monster's face.

He didn't dare wait to see if it worked. McCoy hurled Kirk around, throwing him through the door and followed, sprinting hard down the corridor of the medical office's dorms with the sound of Focalor barking in pain and rage after them.

"Bones-"

"Just run! Don't stop!" McCoy gasped. They tore through the building, by passing the turbolifts to steak down emergency stairwells. On their heels the corridors flooded and froze as the pipes in the walls burst.

"What do we do!?" Kirk panted as they bolted through to the ground floor, streaked through the lobby and out into the Starfleet campus. In a matter of seconds they were soaked to the bone and chilled from the rain. McCoy thought wildly, grasping for some answer.

"We find Dean and Sam Winchester. We find them we find angels... maybe they'll help us." McCoy panted as they raced across campus and running for the downtown city limits.

"How do we do that?" Kirk snapped.

"Old habits." McCoy returned and quickened his pace to lead Kirk towards a small coffee shop a few hundred yards ahead; he hoped they had a communication unit.

**

* * *

**

**A/N: Focalor SUCKS! Abaddon RULES!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Part Three of Four. This was betaed by the lovely ~Sierra Nichole, she rocks! Worship her!**

**... ... ...**

**Summary: **_**It wasn't real...**_

_**... ... ...**_

**Salt of the Earth**

_**"It would be absurd if we did not understand both angels and devils, since we have invented them…"**_

_-East of Eden; __**John Steinbeck**_

_**... ... ...**_

_**Sunlit Days Motel, San Francisco, California**_

_**Stardate 2260; **_

_**September 13; **_

_**1032 Hours**_

Castiel lifted the small clay jar and Dean narrowed his eyes.

"The oil?" Dean wrinkled his nose, "Do you think it'll work?"

"Focalor was an angel-"

"Yeah but now he's an archdemon. That takes some serious corruption." Dean loaded a clip of silver tipped bullets into his engraved Colt 1911. "Might not be enough angel in him for it to hold."

"The nature of your creation doesn't leave you." Castiel responded and gingerly set the jar onto the metal table. "I would know."

Dean started to speak, his voice died when a rapid, almost panicked knock resounded from the door. The Hunter and diminished angel looked at one another, tensed and stiff. No one knocked. Occasionally Abaddon would, but she knew where they were already. Any other angel could just as easily track Castiel and find Dean, pop in when they wanted.

Demons were the same way.

Dean narrowed his eyes and cocked the Colt 1911 before nodding to Castiel. Carefully the angel slunk towards the door, hesitating long enough for another round of terrified knocking to rattle the metal. Gingerly Castiel reached out and typed in the code, unlocking the door and letting it slide back to the catwalk just outside their door.

Panting, wild eyed and soaking wet were two men. One older, his brown hair mussed and slicked to his head, his eyes were a sharp and terrified hazel, hands shaking. His framed was solid, center of balance low.

Over his shoulder was a taller, more lithely built man. Short blonde hair, darkened by rainfall, electric blue eyes confused and unnerved.

There were dressed nearly identical. Jeans and boots, embroidered polo shirt with the Starfleet logo on the chests. The older man in blue and the younger in gold. They were both shivering, unused to the cold of the rain and their pallor pale from shock.

"Dean? Dean Winchester?" The older man rasped, shaking harder. "Or Sam?"

Dean almost felt his muscles snap with tension. Castiel's face twitched in surprise and confusion before it twisted as the smell drifted across his nose. The scent of sulphur and blood, ash and metal washed over him and choked the outcast angel.

The smell of Hell.

Castiel reeled back, lips curling in a near growl. It was enough for the Hunter. Dean launched himself off the bed and swung the Colt up.

"Don't move!" He barked.

Both men seemed to jump out of their skins and back up as Dean advanced to put himself between Castiel and the strangers.

"They smell like the Pit." Castiel hissed. Dean tensed until he felt like a piano wire.

"Easy..." The older man rasped, shivering in the rain. "We're lookin' for help."

The blonde one narrowed his eyes, "Is that a projectile weapon?"

Dean's lips curled and he nearly growled, shifting protectively in front of the outcast angel. "It'll kill you just the same."

The blonde's jaw locked and he looked defiant lifting his chin slightly, blue eyes blazing. Dean's brow knitted together. This kid was familiar... he'd seen his face before.

"You're that kid..." Dean's tone sounded almost accusing. "Couple months back. The Romulan thing."

"Kirk." Castiel muttered behind him. "James."

"Yeah. That's me, want to put that down?" Kirk growled back and started forward, only stalling when the older man gripped his arm and pushed him back gently. Dean sneered at him, actually baring his teeth.

"Don't think you're in much of a position to be giving orders, _captain_." The Hunter spat.

"Please!" The older man rasped, shivering harder and both edging just inside the room. "Please... Dean? You're Dean, right?"

The Hunter narrowed his eyes and said nothing.

"I'm Leonard McCoy. And yer Dean Winchester. From the Gospel-"

"Christ." Dean snarled low in his chest. _Another one_, another religious lunatic that somehow got wind of him and Castiel. Sometimes they were harmless, but only sometimes. Dean kept his aim steady.

"When... when ya got separated, ya and yer brother. The third listin' under motels. Robinson. How ya always found each other. I know I'm right."

iDamnit/i... he needed to ditch these habits. "If you want some kind of autograph-"

"Ya think I want ya to exist!" McCoy snapped. "Yer just scripture and theology! Only came here 'cause there's no one else... "

Dean lifted his chin and narrowed his eyes at the two strangers before making a slight twitch of his hand. Castiel glared at the officers before side stepping and digging into his navy duffle and extracted an ornate, silver flask. It was carved and embossed with Enochian sigils.

Castiel turned it over in his hands once before tossing it to McCoy. "Drink."

The man narrowed his eyes. "I'm a doctor. I'm not goin' to take a swig of some random flask-"

"It's holy water. Drink it." Dean snarled.

McCoy narrowed his eyes, grudgingly unscrewed the cap and wafted the flask under his nose before slinging back a mouthful and swallowing it. Dean and Castiel watching warily for even the slightest flinch as Kirk followed McCoy's example.

"Satisfied?" McCoy growled.

"Why do you smell like Hell?" Castiel muttered. His azure eyes edged in steel and silver.

McCoy stumbled over his words for a moment before speaking. "Focalor..."

The wire of Dean's spine and strung across his shoulders snapped with a twang that Dean was almost sure everyone in the room heard. The Colt fell away and the two Starfleet officers visibly relaxed.

"Focalor?" Dean rasped.

"How do you know about him?" Castiel asked, cocking his head and moving forward to take the flask back, screwing the lid into place and retreating to Dean's side. McCoy seemed to really look at him for the first time.

"Sam?"

Dean flinched, almost biting his tongue. "He's Castiel." He snarled, nearly lunging at the stranger before the smaller man at his shoulder gripped his arm and gently pulled him back.

"Dean. Be still." Castiel's voice was low; a soothing tone that always calmed Dean. When the Hunter was on the brink of being undone and falling too far into violence. Pulling him back. It was the tone and voice that got Dean to sit still for the outcast angel to stitch him back together, it got him to put down the bottle of alcohol, got him to sleep, assured him that he wasn't back in the Pit.

And Dean stepped back, stilling and breathing out.

"The angel."

The Hunter and Castiel looked up to the pure looked of shock, fear and awe on McCoy's face.

"Not anymore." Castiel nudged Dean until the larger man sat on the edge of the nearest bed. "Now. How do you know of an archdemon?"

"We were there... in the cathedral. When you were talking to Abaddon... Abaddon. Christ! Focalor knows Abaddon's here!" McCoy looked like he was about to panic. "Ya have to warn her-"

"Whoa. Alright. First off Abby can take care of herself." Dean growled but he felt his hackles rise. He caught Castiel's eye, having a sharp conversation in that heart beat before looking back to the two Starfleet officers.

"Perhaps it would be best if you were given time to calm yourselves. Dry clothes and something warm to drink. Then you can explain everything." Castiel proposition, his hands up, pouring out pacification.

"There're towels in the bathroom." Dean's head jerked in the direction of the door as he bent to tug his green duffle towards him and extracted two slightly oversized hooded sweatshirts, one ash gray the other chocolate. "Here. Not lending you any jeans. Just leave the shirts on the rack to dry."

McCoy tiredly accepted one of the sweatshirts and stalked to the bathroom. Kirk hesitated before following the doctor's example, stripping off his soaked shirt. The young captain left the door open, not wanting to be trapped in the small room. Dean watched them go for a moment, waiting until he heard the officers speaking to each other in hushed tones.

He twisted and gave a sharp wave for Castiel to move, pulling from a sheath on his hip a silver knife and tossed it. The outcast caught the blade with a practiced movement then ducked around a small divider between the kitchenette and the larger space of the two beds and pseudo den. Castiel cast his eyes around the small area, settling on a plane of glass over the replicator.

Castiel didn't hesitate to slice into his forearm, a narrow gash that was only deep enough to draw a steady stream of blood. He bit his lip at the pain and dug his fingers into the flow, slicking his hands in the hot liquid and started to paint across the glass. The design came easily, the sigil was so like the blood spell that banished angels Castiel slowed himself to ensure he didn't mistakenly draw in the wrong symbols.

"Better?"

Castiel hesitated for a second at Dean's voice, stilling until another voice joined it.

"Yeah... kinda panicked." McCoy's low tones rumbled out to Castiel as he started drawing again, painting the wall with his blood.

"_Kinda_ panicked?" Kirk scoffed. "Bones you've been having panic attacks and delusions all day!"

"Wait... 'delusions'?"

Castiel stilled himself again at Dean's inquiry.

"Yeah. The good doctor here's been hearing voices. If that Focalor guy didn't try and drown us three stories up-"

"Voices?" Dean's tone is sharp, wary and suspicious "What voices?"

Castiel tenses, his mind already running through _those _memories, that collection of information in his mind of overnight miracles and falling stars.

"Angels... only. I think... " McCoy rasped and sounds shaken. "Started a couple weeks ago-"

"_A couple weeks ago!_ Bones! _What the Hell!_ You didn't tell anyone?"

"They'da slapped me with restrictions, Jim! Locked me out! It woulda crippled my career!" McCoy snapped back. "All it did was keep me up. Always goin' on 'bout _him_ not suckin' it up and givin' consent or about Abaddon goin' soft or this monster or that battle."

"Hey!"

Dean bark quieted the room, Castiel tensed.

"You said you know the Gospel?" Dean asked quietly.

"Learned it when I was young-"

"Any idea why you're tuned into angel radio?"

There was a lapse of silence that Castiel must have missed a soundless communication before Dean called to him.

"Cas? Around forty years?"

"None Dean." Castiel responded, and it was true. There had been no signs of an angel Falling in the time frame. His attention snapping back to the spell he was trying to write and that the wound in his arm was starting to clot. He rubbed it roughly, opening the flow again and drew in the next symbol. He tried not to focus too much on the silence that came from the Hunter just out of sight.

"You said Focalor actually came to you?"

"In my quarters. Froze my bathroom and flooded the place before he started chattin'."

"Yeah. What was with the water?" Kirk grumbled.

"Used to be Focalor's charge before he Fell. Ships, sailors and coastal towns were bull's-eyes for the bastard. Tell me what he said."

"Didn't make any sense-"

"Not to you, Doc. Tell me what he said." Dean pressed.

"He wanted to know where I'd been hidin', said that someone would be impressed I was a doctor, that it would put someone named Alistair to shame-"

Castiel clenched his teeth at the name, his mind was whirling. What was so special about a Starfleet doctor? Listening in to the Host was useful but it was a waste of Focalor's attention. An archdemon for one listener? It didn't make sense. Castiel carefully drew in the last symbol, a mark that stood for Abaddon's name, then slicked his palm with a thin coat of blood.

"He wanted to know where I'd learned his name-"

"You itold/i him about Abby?"

Castiel almost left off the blood work. The tone was reserved for prey only.

"He smelled her on me." McCoy rushed the explanation with his own growl. "I didn't say her name."

Castiel felt and heard Dean let out a breath at the same time as himself. There was no relief in it. Not yet. Castiel lifted his hand and pressed his bloody palm flat against the glass, completing the blood work.

For a second nothing happened, Castiel felt the hum and crackle of old, deep power, threading through his blood, the glass, over his hand and crawling up his wrist.

The glass cracked with an audible, bone rattling crunch and grind of the shards. Castiel yanked back, barely avoiding his hand being lacerated and watched as the still fresh blood froze solid, the glass frosting.

"No..." Castiel rasped and bolted around the barrier before Dean could call for him. "Dean."

The outcast angel choked on the hunter's name and a shiver ripped through his frame. The Hunter met eyes with Castiel for a moment, the viridian pools flooded with fear and pain, regret and confusion.

Then pure, undiluted rage.

McCoy barked in pain as he was slung around and slammed into the floor. Dean straddled his chest, the Colt 1911 pressed into his sternum and Dean's hand wrapped in a vice around the doctor's throat. Castiel reacted just as quickly, snagging Kirk's arm, rolling the larger man's weight and flung him into the wall, trapping an arm behind his back and Castiel leaned his weight in to pin the struggling blonde.

"What are you?" Dean snarled, lips curled at McCoy. "Don't lie to me!"

"I'm a doctor!" McCoy snapped back. "Chief Medical Officer on the _Enterprise_! That's it!"

"What does he want with you?" Dean spat.

"I don't know!"

"Think! He must have said something!" Only Castiel was able to catch the waver, the pleading just prickling at Dean's words.

McCoy stayed still, panting. Under Castiel's weight Kirk jerked and snarled a few curses but there was no give. Castiel had been trained, by Dean himself, how to handle someone that outweighed or was taller than him. Kirk was no challenge when the typical prey Castiel had to restrain were demon possessed humans or creatures like werewolves or shapeshifters. The outcast angel kept his head tilted, watching Dean out of the corner of his eye.

"I don't know, alright? I wasn't listenin' very well!" McCoy snarled, his own lips curled. "He was tryin' to drown me! Wanted me for somethin'-"

"Why?" Dean snarled. "Demons have reasons! Patterns! He wouldn't care unless there was a reason! What did he say? Did he say anything about the church?"

Castiel grit his teeth, Dean was fishing, looking for anything that could point to where Focalor was... where Abaddon might be.

"Just that he looked for me there."

"Why?"

"When I came to San Francisco it's where I went for a little while. Then he asked me where I'd been hidin' and called me an 'angelic half-breed'."

Dean jerked away from McCoy so fast it looked like he may have hurt his neck. The Hunter scrambled to his feet, keeping the Colt trained on the doctor. "You're a friggin' Nephilim?"

"What?" McCoy used the bed to pull himself upright. "No. No, they don't exist-"

"Think 'bout it Doc. You unusually good at your job? Nail all your deadlines? Friends think you're a little eccentric? You're tuned into the Heaven's NPR." Dean's muscles and stance twitched. Clear that he wanted to pace, prowl around McCoy but satisfied himself with stepping around until he was between the doctor and Castiel.

The diminished angel was more than grateful. Having his back to a Nephilim, even if it was one that wasn't aware of itself, was lethal.

"No... Nephilim. No. They're..." The _not real_ dropped off the end of the sentence. McCoy shook his head hard in denial. "No..."

"If it fits, Doc. One drop run down the line's all it takes." Dean growled. "Doesn't matter how diluted the blood is."

"Get off me!" Kirk shoved hard, squeezing his knee between himself and the wall and kicked, over balancing himself and Castiel. The outcast angel pitched into Dean, the Hunter's reflexes fast enough to catch the smaller man and steady him. Kirk tumbled to the floor before scrambling back up and moving to McCoy's side. The doctor slumped down onto the end of one of the beds and buried his face in his hands. He let out a shaky breath.

"Face it, Doc. If anybody knows a Nephilim on sight its one of the Fallen." Dean snorted and slowly slipped the Colt 1911 back into the waist band of his pants. "Somebody in your family had a boner for exotics."

"What? Wh... are you saying Bones' part demon?" Kirk demanded.

"Angel." McCoy rasped into his palms. "Nephilim are bred out of ang... _Fallen_ angels and humans."

"You're a friggin' atomic bomb, you know that?" Dean growled, stalking a step forward before Castiel pulled him back again when McCoy flinched, setting his jaw and refusing to look the Hunter in the eye.

"Dean, he's had nearly forty years to break on his own. If it was going to happen it would have." The outcast angel sighed. "The blood must be too thin. The only reason they'd want him anymore is potential or sentimentality. One of the Fallen may want his line under control, asked a favor of Focalor."

Dean sighed and agreed. "Yeah... and enough torture'll turn a girl scout into an animal."

"_Torture?_ Okay, Bones let's get out of here, these guys are insane." Kirk growled to the doctor.

"No. Go if ya want." McCoy sat up and breathed deeply, calming himself. "Is that'll what happen? They'll torture me?"

"Until you pick up the knife, if what Focaor said is anything to go by." Dean shrugged one shoulder, his viridian eyes still hard and wary. "They've been looking for a new Chief of Torture for a long time, no one's panned out like Alistair did."

"They must have heard a rumor about you or drew attention to yourself and they've decided to... outsource." Castiel stepped forward, moving to stand nearer to the two Starfleet officers, trying to sound factual without being cold. McCoy's eyes tracked the blood seeping slowly and drying on his forearm and hand when he moved.

"Why?" McCoy nearly croaked.

"Like in Heaven and on earth, there is an order in Hell. Positions that need to be filled and upheld for the mechanics of it to work. Hell is not, and cannot survive, anarchy," Castiel's tone dropped to the point he used for victims and lost souls. "And like in any order, those positions are not easily filled."

"So when they get a lead on some schmuck that can fit with a little demon one oh one they jump on it." Dean growled. "I.E. you."

McCoy dropped his head into his hand and threaded his fingers into his hair.

"Relax, Doc." The Hunter snorted through his nose. "It's not like we're going to feed you to Focalor. Even if you probably gave Abaddon to him."

Castiel tensed. Dean only ever used the full names of angels when he felt pressure, fear, maybe even loss.

"That's not fair Dean." Castiel rumbled. "Leonard said he didn't give her name."

Dean only curled his lips flashing his teeth unhappily, before stalking into the bathroom and returning with a wet towel. He passed it on to the outcast angel before digging into his duffle for a small plastic box marked with a Red Cross sticker.

"She's probably dead." Dean muttered, as he dug out a spool of fine surgical thread, a needle and a roll of cotton bandaging. He ignored the narrowed and wary eyes of the doctor following his every move as he threaded the needle and bit it off as a good length.

"Focalor's more likely to be dead, Dean. If you think otherwise you've clearly not spent enough time with the Antistratigos." Castiel scolded half heartedly. Neither sounded like they believed themselves or each other. The outcast gingerly mopped up the blood from his arm and hand before moving to sit on the unoccupied bed. Dean followed him, kneeling next to Castiel as the smaller man offered his arm, just starting to seep blood again.

"What're ya idoin'/i?" McCoy barked suddenly as Dean moved to make the first stitch in Castiel's arm.

Both the Hunter and outcast angel twisted to look at him. "What' s it look like?" Dean snapped.

"Yer gonna _sew_ him up?" McCoy choked on the words and at his shoulder Kirk's face wrinkled in surprise and disgust.

"Weird..." The blonde captain muttered.

Dean rolled his eyes towards Castiel before hunching over his arm and sliding the needle into flesh and, as gently as one could in the situation, sewed the wound closed. Castiel flinched a little from time to time but didn't move or make a noise. He was well aware of the looks of shock and disgust the two Starfleet officers had fixed them with.

Dean must have felt it as well, possibly more as he was the one making the neat little stitches. The Hunter tied off the thread and dipped his head, teeth neatly nipping through the fiber, lips just brushing the slightly inflamed skin of Castiel's forearm.

"That's what they said 'bout lobotomies and usin' maggots to clean out wounds, too!" McCoy barked. "He can get an infection and die in a matter of hours."

Dean rolled his eyes and sighed as he dug into his duffle and pulled out a large glass bottle that was three quarters full of bright amber liquid. As much as Dean would like otherwise that particular bottle of whiskey was reserved only for first aid. Castiel braced the damp and bloody towel under his arm and Dean poured a generous amount of the alcohol over the wound. The outcast angel let out a noise that sounded like a yelp or a whimper that was barely suppressed. The lights in the room flickered.

Dean gingerly swept the towel over the wound, mopping up the whiskey and smoothly unrolled and wrapped Castiel's arm with the gauze, smoothing the self-adhesive bandage when he was done. His fingers brushed the smaller man's pulse point as he went.

"I'm fine." Castiel sighed. McCoy looked pale, as if he'd slipped back into shock.

"Ya are insane." The doctor groaned, digging his fingers into his temples.

"Get the map." Dean sighed. "Let's see if when can corner this son of a bitch before he does some real damage."

The Hunter reached around his neck and unclipped a fine silver chain, pulling a medallion from under his shirt and passed it to Castiel. McCoy and Kirk tracked the exchange, catching the small motif of a feather over laid with a dagger and a sigil.

"What's that?" Kirk asked, cocking his head slightly.

"A medal made by Abaddon with her marks." Castiel pulling a map of the city from the pile of research and paperwork, carrying it to the small metal table and spreading it out.

"Angel low-jack." Dean growled, grabbing the large, black duffle tucked out of sight under Castiel's bed and tugged it towards himself. He quickly unzipped the duffle and started rooting through the arsenal in it. A bag of plastic and wood bead rosaries, the serrated blade and bone hilt knife that Dean refused to refer to as 'Ruby's knife', he gingerly pulled a cloth wrapped item from the depths of fire arms, knives and ammunition. He started stuffing them into a smaller, faded duffle bag to carry.

He carefully unwrapped the cloth to expose the ornate spike of solid silver.

"That's it isn't it?" McCoy asked. "The Sword of Lucifer."

The Hunter only grunted in response. The low tones of Castiel speaking in Enochian drew the attention of the other three. His back was turned and he held the chain and medallion carefully in one hand over the map.

"Yer goin' to kill him." McCoy said after a moment, talking over the low chanting.

"You want him alive?" Dean snapped, he felt the hair on the back of his neck rising as Castiel continued the soft chant. Dean's hand dug into the bag full of rosaries, rooting around until he extracted one made of a red wood. He thread it through his fingers then carried the string of beads around to the kitchenette and from the small refrigeration unit pulled a clear plastic gallon of water. He unscrewed the lid and dropped the rosary in with a murmur of Latin and closed the jug. Carrying it back to the chosen arsenal.

"Dean." Castiel turned and tossed back the medallion, Dean catching it effortlessly and looped it back around his neck. "In the south part of the city. A small neighborhood, personal residences."

"That's it?" Dean prompted. "Focalor's a show boater, it's cliché but is there something more up his alley?"

"Ya said the south side?" McCoy prompted.

Castiel nodded.

"City aquarium's 'round the south side." McCoy relayed quietly.

"That's more like it." Dean snorted and rooted into the duffle before extracting a small tin box. He opened it and pulled out a piece of pink chalk. The Hunter roughly climbed up on the bed nearest the door and stretched up to draw on the ceiling. "Listen. When we walk out lock the door and line the entry to both doors and the window with salt. It's in that metal canister."

Dean grunted as he dropped down, twisting his neck to make sure of the sigils and lines of the ward he'd drawn. He moved to the door to draw a different one on the back of the cool metal. Leaving thick lines of pink in the wake of his hand.

"You want us to stay here?" Kirk asked with a snort.

"Yep." Dean finished the last stroke and line of the ward on the back of the door and dropped the chalk back into the tin. He brushed his finger tips across his thigh, leaving a streak of pink on the dark blue. He picked up an old business card and a pen, scribbling a series of numbers on the back. "If we're not back in fifteen hours call this number. Ask for Mitchell. He's a local Hunter, might make the effort to save your asses as long as you keep it to yourself about being a Nephilim."

Dean tossed the card down and grabbed the small duffle and his old leather coat, slinging both across his shoulders. Castiel pulled on his own chocolate corduroy jacket. The thick collar of false fleece hugging against the smaller man's throat and stubbled jaw. He settled a sheathed silver dagger on his belt then gingerly hefted the Sword of Lucifer, holding it like a dangerous animal that was only just tolerant of his touch.

"You're ditching us? You seriously expect us to sit here?" Kirk barked, the young man's face was flushed. Dean stilled, his shoulders hunching for a second as he tried to calm himself before turning to look the blonde in the eye.

"Listen, astro boy, I've been doing this a very long time. Taking a civilian into a fight that involves not just any demon but an archdemon iand/i angels... it doesn't work out. So why don't you space cadets keep the theatrics and heroics for when you discover some talking slime in the Omega Quadrant and the publicists are falling over themselves to get to you?" Dean quirked his lips in a humorless smile and turned back to walk towards the door, where Castiel was standing patiently in the doorway.

"Focalor wants me-"

"Which is why you're not going within a mile of the bastard, Doc." Dean snapped over his shoulder with a harsh sigh.

"He'll know yer comin'. He'll guess or somethin', get it out of Abaddon-" McCoy stood.

"Abaddon would _never_ give anything over to the Griffin." Castiel growled so harshly is seemed to surprise Dean. The outcast angel's eyes were planes of sheer ice, flashing dangerously.

"We could-"

"No." Dean and Castiel chorused, cutting off McCoy harshly as they slunk out the rented room, the door sliding back into place. The pink drawn ward on the back glaring at them harshly.

"Jim, we cain't just let 'em walk outta here." McCoy growled after a heartbeat.

…

_**San Francisco City Aquatics Center and Aquarium, San Francisco, California**_

_**Stardate 2260; **_

_**September 13; **_

_**1145 Hours**_

Dean took point.

He always took point. Over two and a half centuries and that control, one of a few, was something Dean refused to relent.

Castiel was fine with it. Keeping to Dean's back gave the outcast angel his own sense of protecting the Hunter. Watching over his most vulnerable angle was important, a position that had been filled once and stood empty for too long until Castiel took it.

He stalked slowly on Dean's heels giving the Hunter the perfect amount of room to move, the space to act and react unhindered, but not so far as that Castiel couldn't quickly slip in to stand at Dean's back.

Dean moved gingerly, light footed, so much that he was near silent. In one hand the serrated knife, the bone hilt warm and pliable in the Hunter's grip. His other wrapped around the gallon of holy water, the rosary bobbing in the liquid.

It was relatively pointless now unless they threw it directly onto the archdemon. They were walking in ankle deep, icy water. The whole floor of the aquarium was flooded, water had been running out from under the door and lost to the rain. They were soaked, Castiel and Dean's hair darkened and plastered to their skulls, rivers of cold rain water trickling down the lines of their spines, their inner most layers of clothes under soaked jackets were warm against their skins, but heavy and awkward. Their jeans were different stories. The smallest tremors were racking through their frames, shaking their cores but they kept themselves still, moving no more than necessary.

That probably didn't matter either. Focalor most likely knew they were there.

The oil was useless, as was the holy water and any devil's traps they could have hoped to plant, it would wash away in the chilled flood lapping at their feet.

They had the knife and the Sword now. And neither would kill the archdemon. Not without a full fledged angel's power behind them. Another reason to pray that Abaddon was alive.

The aquarium was brightly lit, cast in ripples of pale blue and eerie shadows were the dark was able to hold out against the artificial lights. It was a labyrinth of a place of wide halls and towering, peaked ceilings. Enclosed rooms full of bubble tanks growing from the wall itself or cylindrical ones that stood like support beams for the ceiling. There was a lit tunnel of glass where large animals drifted lazily over head. Massive, open observation rooms with tanks that stretched from the floor to the ceiling and the length of the room. Each was filled to the brim with cerulean water, behind it an array of colorful corals, plant life and even more colorful fish and crustaceans, amphibians and mammals dozed or lazed around their habitats.

Neither Castiel or Dean had walked through an aquarium before, one of those many 'normal' events that simply didn't have room for in their hard, nomadic lives. Any other time walking through the rooms would have taken hours, the Hunter and outcast angel would have soaked in each display with a childlike wonder. No time. There was never time.

It was one of the massive, observation rooms that Dean and Castiel found the thick glass shattered, thousands of gallons still bubbling out onto the floor. But the fissure was not recent. The fish, either bobbing along in the ankle deep water or so large that they lay on the floor water flowing around them, were dead. Their eyes milky and mouths gaping but none gulped and heaved the way freshly landed creatures did.

Castiel carefully stepped over the still form of a Hammer Head Shark, his boot slipping slightly as it connected again with the flooded floor. Castiel hesitated before pulling his other leg after him. He carefully slid his grip down the Sword, balancing it better. He felt the silver hum under his grip, the weapon not pleased to be handled by a creature that was only an echo of angelic heritage.

Dean's normal, wall hugging stalk widened, side stepping to avoid bits of broken coral and dead fish. Their steps sloshed and slid, unsteady. It was frustrating. Not Hunter liked to be unbalanced, especially not on a Hunt like this one.

The quiet gurgling of water and grind of cracked glass was interrupted by a wail. The noise was a warble, a cry that only fringed on human, rising high enough that the lights over head flickered, one burst and a few planes of glass still clinging to the tank's frame cracked and shook. The noise was wrought of pure pain and rang long after it started, echoing and threatening to burst their eardrums. Dean actually felt a slight trickle of blood dribble down his jaw from his ear.

They froze, making far too much noise, as they scrambled until their backs were pressed against the slick glass. Realizing only then, with their spines and shoulders pressed into the surface, that the glass was frosted. The pair shivered hard from the cold and the noise as it died off.

The sound was that of an angel in extreme distress.

Neither could help the half breath of relief. Abaddon was alive... or at least whatever angel had made that noise was alive.

Dean looked over his shoulder and saw the fear in Castiel's eyes and his face pale. The smaller man had an idea or experience in what would cause that noise. It turned Dean's stomach, what Abaddon had said came back to him.

_... he'll pull all my feathers out..._

Dean grit his teeth and stilled, tilting his head and listening. Castiel was doing the same. Something was sloshing through the water. Steady and slow, cautious. They waited and the noise doubled for a second before falling into step again. Two. Dean dropped his head and tightened his grip on the knife, spinning it in his palm to a better grip.

Dean twitched his head and Castiel ducked low, stalking passed the Hunter and slipped into the shadows, his form melting away. Dean turned and stalked towards the sound of watery footsteps, shuffling his own feet to dull the sound. The steps were closer, coming from around the corner of a support beam. Dean crouched, pressing his back against the plaster and metal, balance low he waited, watching and listening until the shadow crossed the water. The Hunter sucked in a breath and lunged, slamming bodily into the intruder, hearing on the other side Castiel making the same move, syncing in perfectly with Dean.

Dean crushed the other into the pillar, a forearm across the throat and knee against the hip, Dean drew the knife back and froze. Terrified blue eyes looked back at him for a second before they hardened and the younger man shoved him back.

"Get off me!" Kirk snarled. "What's with you freaks and pin-"

Dean slammed his hand over the blonde's mouth and shoved him back hard enough that Kirk's skull cracked against the pillar. Dean grazed the blade warningly over the young Captain's throat,

Kirk's pale blue orbs widened, out of the corner of his eye Dean saw Castiel slowly extract himself and allow McCoy to pull away from the wall Castiel had crushed him into. Dean waited until he had the blonde's full attention before mouthing the word 'quiet'.

Kirk's eyes flicked towards McCoy before back to Dean and he nodded a fraction. Dean drew back, pulling the blade away. Before Kirk could solidify his stance Dean gripped his shoulder and shoved down, hooking a boot behind Kirk's knee and buckled the man's legs, shoving him down to sit in the frigid water. Kirk struggled for a second and eyed the knife hatefully when it drifted back.

Dean mouthed again 'stay', holding up a palm. He twisted and did the same towards McCoy. He flicked his hand to Castiel, motioning the outcast angel to follow. Dean only took three steps before Kirk started to get to his feet.

In a blur Dean drew the Colt 1911 still holstered against the small of his back and swung it to point at Kirk's face. The eerie broken light casting across the engraving on the nickel. Kirk narrowed his eyes at the firearm but before he could make a move either to rise the rest of the way or sit again the quiet was rendered apart again.

"Might as well them come along Dean-o!" The archdemon's voice echoed and chided, sing song in the building. "I'll be playing with them either way!"

Dean let out a distracted sigh and let his hands drop to his sides, head falling back.

"He probably knew we were here anyway, Dean." Castiel still whispered, but didn't try hushing his words.

"Yeah." Dean ground out and turned on his heel, "Stay close. Maybe you won't die." Dean snapped over his shoulder, making no attempt to hide his steps sloshing through the water. Castiel nodded the two Starfleet officers a head before falling into step behind.

"What are you doing here?" Castiel asked in his low rasp of a voice. "We told you to stay back."

"It's my fault that bastard's here-" McCoy growled.

"Don't flatter yourself." Dean snapped. "Focalor wouldn't get pulled out of the Pit for ione/i Nephilim. You're just convenient."

McCoy swallowed audibly. Kirk bristled at the mistreatment of his friend. "This is our city, Winchester. We're not letting a monster run wild."

Dean stilled, his shoulders hunching slightly before he twisted to lock eyes with the blonde over his shoulder. "You could Hunt for a lifetime with all the monsters that 'run wild' in this city."

A chill swept through Kirk and he barely suppressed a shiver at the cool detachment in Dean's voice. It was an exhausted noise, not a broken one, just the sound of a creature that had been stretched too thin.

Dean stalked a head, restless and itching for blood now that his approach had been blown. It wasn't the first time, nor likely to be the last that he'd lost surprise but it was unsettling, pure agitation, when it was stripped from him... which was becoming more and more frequent.

Maybe he really was starting to feel his age. Two hundred and eighty years alive not counting forty in Hell he was due up to lose a step or two. Dean snarled, rebelling against the idea. He couldn't lose a step, there were still lives depending on his own, especially now. He could hear them breathing, pacing close to his heels.

Then there was the one out of sight. Abaddon.

Dean's pace quickened, nearing a trot. Castiel kicked up his own pace in time, faster than the two Starfleet officers did. Their boots sloshed in the frigid water, lifting up to soak jeans at the knees.

Dean led the way down a darkened hall that opened up into another massive observation room. The walls dark and the room only lit by the light behind the giant plane of glass. The cerulean water was thick with pale yellow forms and long tendrils of blood red and gold. They drifted and pulsed, hundreds, possibly thousands of Sea Nettle Jellyfish. Their delicate bodies casting pale shadows in the drift and ripples of light filtering through the frosted glass.

"Amazing creature aren't they? They barely have nervous systems but they're one of the most populous creatures on this planet."

Dean didn't twitch at the words, only kept his eyes locked on the speaker in the center of the room.

There was a single, long bench, set away from and arched along the curve of the glass. The flat surface several feet off the ground and about four feet wide. Mid way along the bench Focalor had set up shop. The pale creature was drenched in blood, up to his elbows and all down his front, though the liquid looked congealed and stiff with an odd sheen to it, frosted on his skin. He knelt on the bench, straddling his prey at the hips and lower abdomen. There was a slight manic grin on his lips and a clay diving blade balanced in one hand.

Stretched out awkwardly, half on her side, was the form of Abaddon. The she angel was shivering, her skin pale and twitching with the soft sound of crackling ice. Her body was twisted, possibly broken, arms and hands slack. There was a blue, sickly tinge to Abaddon's lips and cheeks. Her neck was stretched and strained to look at them, her eyes glassy and exhausted but far from broken.

The Antistrigos was dripping crimson from sigils and symbols intentionally carved into her flesh, morbid tattoo work that marked the Angel of War with binding and weakening wards. The blood moved sluggishly, the same sheen to it and discolor that told testimony that the blood still oozing slowly from wounds was just this side of frozen. Her hair was torn loose and dripping both blood and slowly melting water. The noise a steady rhythm of drops adding to the flooded floor.

The only place of raw blood and flesh was her back. Focalor had worked deep and violent power and torn Abaddon's wings from her true form, molding them into reality and laying them across her vessel's shoulder blades and back, now misshapen with gore and twisted and bulging flight muscles no human was meant to have. The wings weren't large, each maybe three feet from where they joined the morbid birthing from her back to the longest pinion flight feather. The feathers looked sharp, more like the edges of knives, dark, as if they were only flitting between being made of shadow and flesh. A sleek red sheen that matched russet hair was over shadowed by a thin layer of frost and ice. One wing was pinned to the surface of the bench, a thick spike of steel and ice driven through the flesh and feather into the metal and wood. The other was clutched in Focalor's hand, his grip crushing the longest feathers ruthlessly and every time he shifted Abaddon winced.

The wing itself was missing several dominant quills, blood pooling fresh and freely from the gaps. The lost feathers floated sickly in the flooded water of the floor.

Abaddon searched out for Dean's eyes, when she couldn't draw the Hunter's attention from Focalor she sought out Castiel. The outcast's eyes flicked from her to the archdemon and back again. When Castiel met her gaze and held it Abaddon blinked once, slowly and lazily, the way she always did and Castiel breathed a little easier. Abaddon was in pain, possibly felt it in her true form, she'd probably been tortured for hours by the archdemon. She was hurt but she was far from broken. In her glassy viridian eyes were was a wildness, the wrath of war suppressed by the power wrought into the sigils carved into her flesh, binding her down and making her bleed.

Abaddon was muzzled and chained. They needed to break a link, snap the bindings and turn the war machine loose.

"Now this one. Bundles of nerves." Focalor grinned, flashing teeth and he gave the feathers in his hand a tug and drew the edge of the clay knife across the plane of her shoulder, making the first cut that could hew the wing from its place. The wound gurgled as blood bubbled to the surface, fresh and hot before Focalor bent and puffed a breath across the wound. Instantly the liquid slowed, cooling and stiffening, freezing in place. Abaddon lurched through the process but barely let out a noise passed a pained snort.

"Dean-o, I'm glad you brought the boy along. Makes my life just a tiny bit easier." Focalor grinned wolfishly. "Thisaway he gets a little lesson in breaking angels. His first lesson in fact. Now that's the way to start. That's class. Starting at the top. But let me warn you kiddo-"

The archdemon pointed the knife in McCoy's direction and the doctor couldn't repress a shudder.

"-we don't get treats like this often in the Pit." Focalor twisted the blade in his hand and lightly patted Abaddon's cheek. "Best to use 'em wisely and make sure they last. You can't let you get yourself all wrapped up in the exquisite delicacy that is an angel on the rack."

The archdemon seemed to be scolding almost; he grinned and obscenely slipped a few fingers into his mouth, sucking Abaddon's blood off his pale flesh before pulling them from his lips and licking the pad of his thumb.

**... ... ...**

**A/N: One more part to go people. **


	4. Chapter 4

**Part Four of Four**

**... ... ...**

**Summary: Slay me a dragon…**

**... ... ...**

_**San Francisco City Aquatics Center and Aquarium, San Francisco, California**_

_**Stardate 2260; **_

_**September 14; **_

_**1302 Hours**_

"Of course I never was the poster child for restraint." Focalor shrugged and turned the blade over in his hands. Spinning it casually between his fingers. before bending over Abaddon's back, pulling her wing out further, drawing the clay blade along the freshly made wound, hewing deeper into the joint around the wing then freezing it as the blood bloomed.

Abaddon jerked once but made not noise, the muscles in her shoulders and the wing trapped in Focalor's grip flexed but there was no more reaction from her than that. The archdemon sighed loudly.

"You're far too quiet, little dove." Focalor hummed. "Only ever get noise out of you for one of these."

Focalor swung the clay blade around to the back of the wing in his grip, dug it into the quick of a feather and yanked it free, fresh blood bursting from the new gap.

Abaddon wailed in agony. The same warbling, wild noise that pitched out of humanity. Dean felt the drum of his ear hum, a fresh trickle of blood bubbling down his jaw and along his throat. Behind him McCoy and Kirk doubled over, slapping hands over their ears, blood flowing through, unused to the cries of angels. Castiel flinched, staggering only slightly and his own blossom of blood rippled down the side of his face from his ear.

Just as quickly as it started the cry died, echoing and ringing in their ears. Abaddon gave a few wet, lurching coughs, shivered violently before going still and silent again.

Focalor spun the dislodged feather between his fingers, the quill making a noise like a blade spinning through the air, humming. Focalor held it out towards Dean.

"Want it?" He asked coyly.

Dean's face twisted, he flipped the knife, catching it by the tip before hurling it with all his force towards Focalor. The knife sank hilt deep into the archdemon's shoulder, Focalor barked in pain jerking and letting go of Abaddon's wing. The wound around the knife crackled, hissing and popping with energy, leaving Focalor panting heavily and lips curled in a snarl.

"Straight to business then?" The pale creature growled, breath and narrow chest heaving. "It's going to take more than the pig sticker, to do it, Dean-o."

Castiel stepped up to the Hunter's side, the Sword flashed in his hands.

Hissing and rasping for air, Focalor grinned. The wild, manic gleam flashing in his icy eyes. "That's more like it."

The archdemon lunged towards the Hunter and outcast angel. Dean swung the gallon of holy water around, slopping it over the demon. Focalor balked, staggering back with a snarl of pain as the blessed liquid rolled off his frame in thick billows of steam.

Dean and Castiel sidestepped, drawing away from the two Starfleet officers and Abaddon. Focalor shook himself like an over large dog, hesitating to get his bearings before throwing himself back at Dean. Tackling the Hunter around the midsection and slamming him into the flooded floor, sending the gallon container rolling. Castiel launched himself at Focalor, crushing his shoulder into the archdemon's side and bowling him, head over end, off Dean and across the floor.

Kirk hesitated, looking for a gap to enter the fight when McCoy grabbed his arm and yanked him back.

"Bones-"

"Help me!" McCoy jerked his head towards Abaddon. The Antistratigos was twitching, her muscles and breathing hitching. The way her wings, crumpled and ragged, hovered over her Abaddon looked like some song bird crushed into the earth. She gave small jerks, her eyes fixed on the fight and trying to crawl into the fray.

McCoy was a doctor, a healer, it was so deeply trained into him it was his nature. Seeing the broken and twisted form rang deep in his soul. He wanted to mend the wounds, knit the flesh back together and wash the blood away. Make her whole, even if she wasn't human. He treated xenos often enough, what difference was an angel?

Kirk hesitated before nodding and following on McCoy's heels. The doctor crouched low, trying not to draw attention to himself as he slunk around to Abaddon's side. He hesitated before gingerly brushing his fingers across the she angel's bicep. McCoy felt Kirk crouch next to him.

The she angel's eyes whipped around, looking at them in curiosity, considering and studying them.

"Easy." McCoy's voice died for a moment, looking at the ancient and glazed pools of viridian. He struggled, trying to draw up some form of bedside manner. "Easy. I'm Leonard McCoy. I'm a doctor. I'm goin' to-"

"Cut the formalities, son. Pull the spike out. Turn me loose." Abaddon rasped in a deep southwestern drawl.

"The spike?" McCoy asked, his eyes drifting towards Abaddon's pinned wing.

"Ya think I'm lyin' here 'cause I enjoy the view? It's forged of the steel and fire of Hell itself. As long as it's in I'm bound here. Little more than meat for carvin'. Ya must ipull it free/i."

"Alright." McCoy rasped and slunk around Abaddon, kneeling next to the pinned wing to inspect the spike. The thing was three inches wide, possibly a foot long but only three or four inches protruded from the top of the wing. The surface was icy and discolored with frost, marking embossed deep in the steel. It was driving straight through bone, flesh and feather. The dark feathers were slick with frost and the congealed remains of frozen blood. Her back was raw and torn, mutilated. "Aba..." McCoy choked stumbling over the angel's name. "Abaddon, it's in too deep. Too much damage. It's not safe-"

"Son, this ya must do. Do what ya need. Carve, tear, break, pull our feathers but ya have to pull it free." Abaddon rasped.

"Damnit. Alright. Yer the boss, don't mind me, I'm just a medical professional." McCoy growled and gingerly settled his palms onto the wing around the spike and the wound. He tried not to flinch at the hitch and flex of flesh and feather under his touch and the jerk of her shoulders.

"Jim. I'm goin' to need ya to pull it out. Just grip it low and one solid pull, get it out clean." McCoy commanded, in his element and command took over. The blonde nodded and slunk over. He had to take up Focalor's place, straddling her hips and lower abdomen. His weight slipped, colliding with the Antistratigos. The she angel twitched.

"Sorry." Kirk scrambled to get away, lift his weight without jostling Abaddon.

"It's alright, James." The Antistratigos croaked, letting out a gasp through a bubble of blood that burst at her lips into a pink froth.

"Christ, yer bleedin' in yer lungs." McCoy moved away from the pinned wing.

"The spike. Nothin' else matters, son. Pull it free." Abaddon twisted her neck, flicking her eyes over to the fight across the room as Dean yanked the knife free from Focalor's shoulder then turned the blade to slash across the archdemon's forearm, laying the flesh open to the bone and forcing the creature to break his grip on Castiel's throat. "Now. Son."

"How... how did you know my name?" Kirk asked, balancing himself carefully, trying to keep his weight off her.

"I'm the Angel of War. I've had a hand in the makin' of each soul that sees battle." Abaddon gurgled softly. "Now, pull it free."

"Okay. Okay." Kirk sounded a little unsettled but bent himself over her. He reached towards the spike, wrapping his hands around the steel only to jerk back, hissing in pain.

"Jim-"

"It burned, alright?"" The blonde snapped back, wringing his hands.

"Cold." Abaddon rasped. "Lucifer's fire."

"Jim. We don't have time for this." He flinched when from somewhere behind him Castiel cried out, Dean barking his name, a splash and clatter of metal. The outcast had dropped the Sword.

Abaddon twisted, arching her neck painfully and twitched. Her muscles jerking as she tried to roll over, get to her feet, get to the fight, reacting to the cries of her brother and favorite soldier. Her free wing stretched, the gaps without feathers bursting with fresh blood in the small struggle.

"Pull it free. Now. Son, pull it free." Abaddon spit pink froth and fresh blood; she was shaking hard now, desperation in her eyes.

"Jim-"

"I got it." Kirk's voice was muffled as he tugged the borrowed hooded sweatshirt over his head. He draped then twisted it around the spike before wrapping his hands into place, only feeling the slightest bite of cold. McCoy's fingers twitched, feeling the warmth starting to fill the small space between the fabric, his hands and the wing. He felt the feathers go slick with melting frost and blood.

"Ready?" McCoy asked as Kirk steadied himself and nodded. "Alright. Pull."

Kirk levered, tightened his grip and gave a single, solid yank on the spike. It lurched, jostling slightly, only moving a fraction before going still again. The fabric and Kirk's grip slipped, the blonde toppling backwards into Abaddon with a sickening crunch, the fragile bones of her free wing and ribs bending and snapping under his weight.

Abaddon let out a snarl of agony, shaking violently, choking on her own hitching breath and frothy blood. Kirk quickly lurched up, practically rolling away, unintentionally ripping into the Antistratigos' raw and mutilated back on the way, earning a smaller grunt no less full of pain.

"Oh God." The blonde was pale and shaken, his skin and jeans streaked in the angel's blood.

"It's nothin'." Abaddon grit out. "Pull the spike free. _Now_." Another bark of pain from Castiel from across the room making her wings shiver.

"Abaddon-" McCoy rasped, pale himself and unsure.

"Sufferin' done now is rewarded later. Have no fear and take my strength. But it has to be done now. _Pull it free._" She commanded, her voice resonate and painful.

McCoy hesitated for a second but Kirk lunged forward, wrapping bare hands around the spike, hissing and gritting his teeth and pulled hard. The spike shifted, grinding and twisting but stayed firmly lodged.

"Bones." Kirk rasped, snapping the doctor from his trance. McCoy wrapped his own hands in place over the young captain's pulled with him. The cold of the steel and ice bit ruthlessly into their flesh, eating it away. They twisted and jerked the spike, jostling it and pulling it inch by inch from the pinned wing and bench.

Abaddon twisted, rolling halfway onto her stomach, muscles twitching and breath shaking in her lungs.

The two Starfleet officers took a breath and heaved and the spike came away with a crackle of breaking ice. The wing snapped free, bowling them both off their feet and into the flooded water. Abaddon rolled and launched off the surface of the bench in a flash of russet, the wings heavy with ice and frosted blood.

Focalor's head snapped up from where he had Castiel pinned into the floor by the throat, strangling and trying to drown the outcast angel in the frigid water. Dean was trying to get back to his feet, his boots and hands slipping on the iced glass of the tank and the flooded floor.

Focalor snarled, curling his lips and broke his grip on Castiel to meet Abaddon. The collided like two forces of nature with sounds of snapping bone and tearing flesh. Abaddon's wings cut through the air, balancing her as she landed double fisted blows into the larger form of Focalor, striking him across the face and kicking out his knees. The archdemon retaliated, slamming his shoulder up into her gut and grabbed a hand full of feathers, yanking on them hard; only two came free in his hand and the warbling cry of pain shattered lights over head. She over balanced and Focalor shoved hard, throwing the Antistratigos into the frigid water on her mutilated back, pinning her down with a boot in her throat.

As the archdemon started to speak Castiel launched himself onto Focalor's back, wrapping arms around the pale throat and yanking back with all his strength, legs twisted around the archdemon's waist. Focalor snarled and staggered under the weight as Castiel drove the knife between the creature's ribs. The archdemon barked in pain, this wound, like the last one, sparking and crackling with power, Focalor arched, twisted and snarled.

Castiel tightened his choke hold. Focalor snorted, reached around and wrenched the knife free, bucking the outcast off and planting the blade into his abdomen as he stumbled. Castiel let out a wet gasp, staggering back before collapsing to the flooded floor.

"Cas!" Dean barked and shoved himself away from the tank to the smaller man's side. Castiel scrambled, grabbing a handful of Dean's shirt as blood started to bubble in his throat.

"Pity." Focalor sighed. Dean bared his teeth at the archdemon and drew Castiel closer, shadowing him protectively. Castiel gasped wetly and yanked Dean closer, his grip turning white on the shirt. "He was a pretty thing."

Dean's eyes stayed on the archdemon for a few long seconds before they flicked down to a flash of silver in the water. The Sword. Focalor's eyebrow raised, twisting to follow Dean's gaze.

"Go..." Castiel croaked and the Hunter didn't hesitate, breaking away, dashing passed the archdemon, sliding through the water. He snaked the Sword and flung it across the floor. Focalor dived for the Sword, rolling in the flood. The slender, silver weapon kicked up a spray, Abaddon lurched to her feet, hooking a boot under the Sword and hiked it into the air.

Focalor barked in rage and threw himself at the Angel of War. Abaddon spun the Sword once and braced it, flaring her wings as she drove the point into the archdemon's chest, impaling him between ribs and through the lung.

Focalor staggered to a stop. Looking slightly surprised down at the Sword. Abaddon planted her weight and shoved it a little deeper before giving the archdemon a slight shove, pushing him back and away from her. Focalor tilted his head down at the Sword, lifting a hand to graze it, he was wild eyed and a rattle of laughter crept from his chest before it died and the archdemon's knees gave way, collapsing to kneel before the Angel of War.

Abaddon straightened herself; tattered wings stretching up and out to their full span. Under the mutilated and freely bleeding flesh her spine arched and pulled straight. Focalor's head rolled back and he looked up at her, another small outburst of mad laughter trickled from his lips as bubbles of blood expanded and popped in his mouth. The laughter died and the archdemon looked up at Abadddon.

"He told me I could come Home after twelve hundred years. I was an angel..." He smiled, blood dribbling from his lips. He looked up Abaddon almost pleadingly. "Sister... forgive me."

Abaddon breathed out her nose, tilting her head away from the archdemon. "No, brother. Ya want redemption find someone else. I cain't grant it."

Abaddon side stepped around the creature as Focalor slumped slightly before crumbling into the frigid water, a flicker of light illuminating his skeleton for a moment before it passed.

Dean had already retreated back to Castiel, pulled the smaller, shivering man into his lap and chest, trying to stem the flow of blood from his gut. The outcast angel was panting and heaving, eyes starting to glass over. His fingers were dug into Dean's blood and water soaked shirt.

Abaddon stumbled, hitching steps until one knee crumpled under her and she dropped to the flooded floor near them. She shifted awkwardly to be closer before calling over her shoulder. "Son. On yer feet. Quick now."

McCoy was this trying to work warmth back into his hands. He hesitated at Abaddon's command.

"Son. Now." The Angel of War barked and McCoy scrambled to follow the order, dragging Kirk after him. He moved automatically, creeping around to kneel in the water next to the wounded man. He gingerly pushed Dean's hands away and pulled up Castiel's shirt, inspecting the wound as best he could with the fabric pinned in place by the blade. His heart hitched and sank.

The blood was dark, nearly black. McCoy lightly swept his fingers through it, testing the viscosity.

"It's a liver shot." The Hunter rasped.

The doctor looked up at the knowing eyes of Dean; the haunted pools of green were dull, sick with guilt and loss, past and present. He shivered, making Castiel gasp and whimper as he was jostled slightly.

"D-Dean..." He choked, blood coloring his lips and teeth, his voice choking. "Sister..."

"Be still, Castiel." Abaddon chided, her voice was starting to take on that tone. That low coaxing timber that soothed soldiers as they passed on into the next world.

"Don't." Dean spat, tightening his grip on the outcast angel. "Abby. Don't you dare."

"Quietly, Dean." The Antistratigos soothed. "He is a healer-"

"I cain't fix it." McCoy rasped. "If I had somthin' to work with. Anythin'. I could do somethin' but it's too severe... I cain't."

"Ya are not totally without resource." Abaddon's low coaxing tone continued, moving to light a hand on the medical officer's shoulder. "I have a little power to heal. It's not my forte; I'm not a creator by nature. While I have it, I know not how to use it. I can lend ya this. All ya have to do it tell it what to do, tell it how to fix it."

McCoy looked at Abaddon blankly, not completely comprehending what was being said to him.

"This is much to ask of ya." Abaddon stilled for a moment, racked with a few lurching coughs, smearing away a lather of pink froth from her lips. "But this is my brother, son. I'll not let him die. Can ya do this? Act a conduit?"

McCoy's attention twitched sideways, Castiel's head had fallen back into Dean's shoulder, exposing the long curve of his throat, skin already paling with the loss of blood.

"Hurry up then, damnit." McCoy snarled and jumped slightly when he felt Abaddon's small hand press into the small of his back, urging him closer to Castiel. The Angel of War reached around and pulled the knife free, a new wash of blackish blood gurgled to the surface as the she-angel pushed the sodden fabric away from Castiel gut.

"Christ!" McCoy snapped and rushed to put pressure to the wound. Abaddon caught his hand, nearly crushing it with unnatural strength.

"Don't touch, son." Abaddon guided him until McCoy's hand was poised over the wound. So close he could feel the heat coming off in hitching gasps, gurgling blood and spilling free. He wanted desperately to close that last few centimeters, press down into the wound and stem the flow.

"He'll bleed out-"

"Castiel has existed for millennia as one of the Host and centuries more as somethin' little more than human. Believe that he is strong enough to hold out. Now, ya must be still."

"All this stuff I 'must' do for ya..." McCoy growled his hand and shoulder twitching until Abaddon's grip moved. It slid gingerly to his wrist, rolling to the underside until her palm was pressed into his pulse at his inner wrist and the tips of her fingers were flush against the center of his palm. Her hand between his and Castiel's wound.

"I wouldn't lead ya astray, son. Ya aren't mine but I'll treat ya as one." Abaddon assured.

"How am I supposed to treat him without touchin' him?" McCoy snapped, through Castiel's half lidded eyes he saw the azure blue was fading, starting to turn milky. He wasn't going to last long.

"Ya need only tell it what to do. Tell me what to do. It's yer knowledge that's needed, not yer hands. Close yer eyes."

McCoy huffed but dropped the argument when Castiel shook violently. The doctor shut his eyes tightly.

"Quietly now, son." Abaddon breathed in his ear and McCoy felt the pulse of the Antistratigos against his forearm. It was slower than natural. McCoy focused on it, listening and lulling away with the beat until he was sure that his own heart was matching the tremble of it. Slow. Slow enough to be considered dead. Would Abaddon kill him, she was a creature of destruction... The beats stayed slow and even, they never stopped. The beat wasn't irregular, just... sluggish... he wasn't sure of it was typical of an angel or damage done by the archdemon. McCoy shuddered at the thought of Focalor, cold started to flow over his spine.

_He's dead. _A foreign warmth rushed aggressively to push back the cold. It flooded through him roughly, almost harshly. McCoy flinched. The words seared across his mind in the midst of a bonfire flooding his veins.

The doctor tired to jerk away but stilled himself when the grip on his wrist tightened fractionally; reminding McCoy there was a physical world. The bonfire reluctantly flickered down to broiling embers, a coaxing fire. Casting back the shadows and drawing McCoy closer. It wasn't comforting; it was harsh, rough and scorched the edges of himself. It was there to protect him but it made it clear that it would swallow him up if the need came.

_Apologies... _The words licked and nipped at his mind, leaving a lingering pain behind. Like a bad sun burn._ I've been told by my kin that I'm less than gossamer... it's not in my nature to be light handed._

"I'm not made of glass."

He spoke the words, McCoy knows it, felt them molding and spilling from his lips in a croaked whisper but they seemed detached, far away from the harsh warmth and Abaddon humming in his thoughts.

_Granted yer blood is stronger than most, son, ya are still a fragile thin' to me..._

The scorch of warmth pooled at the base of his neck, heavy, almost a collar of weight; the hollow of his chest suddenly felt packed tight, like his ribs are shrinking around his organs. Not painful but uncomfortable, until the warmth seeped down into his core and McCoy felt like he's not alone in his skin anymore and the thing taking up space was rubbing him raw from the inside.

He shifted uncomfortably, inside and outside his skin. His voice cracked softly, mumbling and maybe a little slurred. "What happenin' here... are ya possessin' me..."

_Ya cannot be taken as a vessel. If ya could have I would have asked for yer permission._

"I... don't understand..."

_My Grace, what little of that can heal, I'm giving over to yer power for a time. Now use it._

"How-"

The burn in his chest flared, stripping the bone from his ribs. He senses, feels, the wound more than he sees it. It's all around him. Alien and familiar all at once.

_Command it._

McCoy shook a little under the crush of heat and power and destruction that wasn't Abaddon, just the failing flesh and organs of a creature that was and wasn't human. It's like being surrounded by a forest fire. He swallowed hard and felt the slight pressure of fingers tips in his palm. It's so detached and far away he has to actually think about it to make it into this formless space.

He breathed in, filling his lungs, realizing that he hasn't drawn air since shutting his eyes. The air's cold, biting and warms slowly against the heat in his chest. He let the air back out. He focused on the sense of the wound.

It's deep, fatal and carved into the liver. Warm and wet, gurgling and bubbling, hotter with shock and fever. The slim and delicate veins were ruptured and seizing.

"Stop."

He had barely breathed the word and the heat in his chest twisted slightly. The veins stilled, taught and straining for a moment before relaxing, slumping and the flow stopped.

It's a shock that he's heeded so quickly. But this is surgery of a kind and McCoy has never faltered in surgery. He licks his lips, chapped and cracked in the cool air.

"The walls need repair..." In an instant the walls and thin tissues are knitting together. "... new blood."

It rushed through the veins, blossoming in rapid fire from marrow and bone and flushing through the systems.

It became a blur, McCoy lost sense of himself in the wound, intimacy of it as he slid billions of cells through his fingers like sand, pausing to will health into damages ones. He muttered, mumbles in incomprehensible strings of whispers that echo and hum around him. The soft tissues of the liver, the damaged muscle all knitted together with a thought, he worked outwards repairing the thick cords and sinews of shredded abdominal muscles, he laid in the slim layer of fat, finally the ever thinning layers of skin, smoothing it and leaving it only flushed with new blood, discolored with irritation, sealing closed the injury.

He breathed again, drawing in air as it nipped at his lungs, cooling the cavity of his chest as the ache and burn of foreign power and consciousness started to bleed away from him.

_Well done_

**... ... ...**

_**Sunlit Days Motel, San Francisco, California**_

_**Stardate 2260; **_

_**September 15; **_

_**1903 Hours**_

"He didn't even leave you a scar."

McCoy's eyelids flickered, slitting them open to dim light and the soft, eerie chatter of rain still falling, muffled by walls and windows, steel and drywall. It takes a few long seconds for the heaviness of unconscious sleep to fade from him.

It was warm and dry, blessedly. It was almost enough to send the doctor back into sleep. He felt like he hadn't been dry for weeks, the bitter cold of Focalor's water and ice left a raw taste in his mouth. He was on his side, half curled around his core. Face was pressed into a pillow that smelled like ozone and coffee, not the bitter freshness that went with the pillows of a Starfleet bunk. The fabric of the comforter under him was warm from his own body heat but not soft. It was rough and scratched slightly against his hands and forearms.

"Dean-"

"C'mon, Cas, this was one of the ones you _want_ something left over." The Hunter growled softly. "That was the Griffin back there. One of _three_. I mean you cannot honestly tell me you're not a little pissed you don't have a memento? There are angels that wouldn't have survived that-"

"Dean. _I_ barely survived it."

A silence hung that was irrupted by a soft snort that was familiar. Somewhere in the room, probably nearer than the Hunter and outcast angel, Kirk was sleeping in an uncomfortable position. A chair probably, it was the same snorting noise the young captain made when he was sedated in sickbay or fell asleep at his desk working.

"Still could have left you something..." Dean grumbled.

"Dean, do you honestly think you moaning about me not having a scar is going to make you feel any better about Abaddon?"

McCoy stiffened.

"Abby could have done it." Dean snapped, tension filling the air. It almost sounded like he was defending and convincing himself. "She could have."

"Angels are not perfect Dean. You of all should know that."

"She's the Antistratigos, Cas-"

"Yes. She is. A warrior. Not a seer or a judge, most certainly not a healer. It's an ugly way to say it but Abaddon is a destroyer, not a creator, not meant to stave off death. At most she could have spared me the pain."

"She didn't need to friggin' _rub wings_ with the guy. He's a goddamn _Nephilim_."

Castiel sighed loudly but didn't come McCoy's defense. "Angels are limited creatures Dean... in some ways more limited than humans."

Dean grumbled something in response then went quiet. McCoy listened intently; there was only a little shuffling and the soft clink of metal and rustle of clothing. It sounded like packing. McCoy relaxed again shifting a little on the bedspread. He wondered how long he'd been unconscious. He was exhausted, and unconsciousness was not sleep, it wasn't restorative.

He felt all his bones were aching, his joints especially and it felt as if his chest cavity was empty all together. He sighed quietly and shifted his hands, then stopped. He moved the right again, twisting his wrist and flexing it. The skin pulled oddly. It felt tighter and thicker than it should have been. It wasn't painful or uncomfortable... but a sense of _wrongness_ was there. McCoy lifted his head and twisted his hand into his sight and went rigid.

It was a print... a hand print.

Seemingly small and delicate, a woman's hand, wrapped around his wrist and overlapped across his palm. The flesh was discolored, pale white in some places and red in others, puckered and tender with new scarring. It was laid perfectly into place where Abaddon had held him before.

A hand print was _branded_ into his skin.

The room was filled with the sound of snapping wings.

"I didn't mean to leave a mark on ya."

His eyes snapped up to where the petite, russet haired woman sat on the edge of the bed across from him. Her skin and hair was clean, free of blood and ice, her pallor didn't look hypothermic but didn't have the flush of health. The clothing had been in ribbons the before were untouched. Her hair tied back into place and the glaze of pain was gone from her brilliant green eyes. There was no sign of the wings across her back and the only remains of the ordeal was marks of raw flesh, looking like second degree burns across her exposed skin.

The sigils and symbols Focalor had carved into her lingering.

"What passed between us shouldn't have been strong enough for a mark. Marks are only laid in deep excess of power, but... I was... not in the best state of mind and ya do carry the blood. It must have been enough."

McCoy's eyes dropped to Abaddon's mark, flexing his hand, pulling at the brand. It didn't hinder movement, wouldn't stop him from doing his job. He sighed and let it drop back to the bedding.

"I expect if I tried a dermal regenerator on it, it wouldn't change."

"A mark is laid by the heat of an angel's Grace. It's not exactly... a common scar." Abaddon blinked lazily.

The doctor sighed again before letting his eyes flit across the sigils raw on her skin. "I can fix those."

Abaddon's head cocked to the side before she looked down and lifted one arm, inspecting the burn on the bicep, before letting it drop and turning her attention back to McCoy.

"No. Ya cain't. These wounds are too deep. They were made on my true self. They'll only be painful for a little while longer."

The doctor stiffed and carefully pushed himself up. He glanced over Abaddon's shoulder and saw Kirk freshly awake, curled awkwardly in a semi-plush chair pushed into a corner between the wall and a small bedside table. The young captain was paying close attention, staying quiet and still.

"Yer in pain?" McCoy asked, bristling at the idea.

Abaddon looked at him calmly, her lisp twitching in a 'not-smile'. "Ya truly are a healer... yer fit for yer callin'... Dean. Castiel, join us."

A grunt and to quickly the Hunter and outcast angel stepped around the short divider between the two beds and the small kitchenette and den. It seemed only fair they had listened to his conversation with the Antistratigos, he'd listened to theirs.

Dean moved instantly to sit next to Abaddon, Castiel sat himself at the end McCoy's bed, giving the doctor a graceful and appreciative nod. Kirk unfolded himself from the chair and stepped around to sit between Castiel and McCoy.

"So?" Dean prompted.

"Ramiel is pleased. I only spoke to him for a moment, he feels justified-"

"He know you almost got killed? That Focalor sniffed you out and was carving into you like you were on the goddamn rack?" Dean snarled.

"Who's Ramiel?" Kirk asked, drawing his legs up to cross on the edge of the mattress.

"An Archangel." Castiel hummed quietly. "The three angel's slaughtered by Focalor were in his Legion. He commissioned Abaddon to dispose of him."

"Was he?" Dean growled.

"He was made aware." Abaddon assured moving to light a hand onto the Hunter's collar squeezing once before settling her grip back to the edge of the mattress. Dean's sharp viridian eyes narrowed, no calm coming over him.

"Mike going to do something about it?" He asked coldly. Abaddon sighed and Dean's temper snapped. "Damnit Abby!"

"Such favoritism-" She started.

"iEveryone knows/i you're Michael's favorite! Maybe if he actually treated you like the soldier you were you wouldn't have those scars!" Dean barked.

"Dean." Castiel warned and the Hunter calmed, flashing his teeth unhappily.

"The Host is at civil war enough." Abaddon rasped heavily out her nose. "Pittin' the Stratigos for my sake against Ramiel would split us further. I cain't take much more infightin'."

She let out an exhausted sigh into the quiet. "There's more. I have spoken to Assiel... or more or less my report happened in his presence."

"Assiel?" Dean cocked his head.

"One of the great Healers in Heaven." Castiel's eyes flicked to McCoy then back to Dean and Abaddon. "What happened?"

"I told him what happened, why they wanted ya, son. Told him what ya did for me. He knew yer name but nothin' of yer blood line. I was obliged to tell him." Abaddon sighed and dipped her head slightly.

Dean looked at the posture, the strain on Abaddon's face and hardened. "Assiel disowned him, didn't he?"

Castiel paled slightly and looked as if he was going to be sick, Abaddon sighed again and nodded her head before lifting a hand to rub along her jaw.

"Possibly before I'd finished talkin'."

Dean snorted in disgust and Castiel wrung his hands, it was unsettling and McCoy felt his stomach bottom out. "What does that mean?"

"You've been left for dead." Dean muttered, running a hand through his cropped hair. "By the one thing that's supposed to ialways/i protect you."

McCoy swallowed dryly. "Why?"

The noise was pleading and tired, full to the brim without comprehension.

"Among my kin, ya are considered an abomination. Nephilim. Ya are like an animal to us, devout, loyalty and acts of compassion aside."

The doctor slumped back against the headboard of the bed, not quiet understanding what he'd been told. Abaddon spoke before the shock settled in.

The Antistratigos spoke softly. "I took him."

Dean and Castiel blinked in surprise, Kirk looked tense and confused and McCoy rubbed his fingers over the puckered flesh of the brand around his wrist and across his palm.

"What?" He asked dumbly.

Abaddon lifted her chin slightly. "I'm not well versed in healin', I'd probably be more of a hindrance than a help. I'm used to lettin' my soldiers seek peace than patchin' them up to send them back out. But I'll do justice by yer nature, and hope ya'll forgive me for my deficiencies. And I'll protect ya with everythin' I have. As I have every soldier in my charge since Father breathed life into man."

McCoy listened, his head dipped towards his chest and eyes heavy. When he spoke his voice was hard and bitter. "Why? I'm an abomination."

Kirk puffed to speak, gritting his teeth but he deflated when Abaddon continued speaking.

"Ya've already forgotten I touched yer soul?" The Antistratigos pushed herself up to stand, settling her hands in the small of her back and lifted her chin to look down at him. "Forgotten that I found ya fit to lend my Grace to ya? Trusted my brother's life to ya? Do ya honestly believe I would do this to an 'abomination'?"

McCoy lifted his eyes; it was an honest question, not sarcastic. Abaddon's head was cocked slightly, eyebrows arched upwards and confusion in her jade eyes.

"No." McCoy rasped quietly.

Abaddon nodded in approval. "Ya bare my mark; I took ya as one of my charges. These are thin's I don't regret. If ya are in need of me to explain myself further, ask me-"

"No... no I think I get it..." McCoy rubbed the brand across his wrist and palm. Abaddon nodded again.

Dean cleared his throat and rubbed his palms together. "I guess we _were_ due for a field medic anyway... won't have nightmares about Croatoan so much... "

McCoy stiffened, his jaw tightening. "Ya want me to _Hunt_?"

"Oh Hell no. Like I said. You're an atomic bomb. You stay in space where if you detonate it's just a vacuum and pretty colors." Dean snorted and bent to snag a pair of jeans just peaking from under the bed, rolling them around his hands and stalked back towards the small table under the window. The Hunter and outcast angel's gear was spread out. Clothes and weapons being divided and checked before being tucked away. Dean dumped the jeans in canvas bag and started sorting the laundry out again, pulling out stray knives or bullets when they surfaced in the clothing.

"Ya aren't fit for the Hunt. For our War. Ya have yer own place, ya turned as my charge doesn't change that." The Antistratigos hummed. "Ya ain't a soldier, son, yer a doctor."

The way she said it was an almost pitying noise, like she can't understand there are sane and worthwhile creatures in the world that _don't_ want to wage war.

She suddenly went rigid, her head tilting to the side as if listening. Castiel and Dean fixed their eyes on her and for a second McCoy doesn't understand until he heard it, too.

Humming, whispering all around him, flooding his senses and drowning out the world. The shrill cries of some swallowed up the choirs of others. Orders and commands overlap praises and warnings and prophecies as the angels sing, crying out from where they are on earth and in a different plane of existence. The ringing pitched in McCoy's ears and he didn't completely understand what he's hearing, he didn't understand the orders.

"Gotta go?"

Dean's voice snapped him out of his trance and he shook his head slowly, grinding his palms into his shut eyes, shaking a little as he calmed his breathing and tried to fight back a headache thrumming in his skull.

Next to him Kirk shifted a little. "Bones?" He asked quietly. The doctor only shook his head tiredly.

"Yes. And ya, too." Abaddon agreed. "Midael, a Lochagos, believes he's scented out brother."

Dean and Castiel stiffened before nodding curtly.

"Let us know Abby. We're going to head back up north." Dean looked at Castiel for confirmation. The diminished angel dipped is head in agreement. "Probably back to Colorado or maybe Washington."

"I'll look for ya there." Abaddon twisted and settled her gaze on Kirk. "James."

The blonde captain straightened a little.

"I'm goin' to speak with Nemamial and request that he takes a moment to acquaint himself with ya a little more personally, ya seem like a charge that's goin' to need some... supervision."

Kirk's head cocked to the side. "Wait... you're not... whatever you are for them-" He motioned at the other three in the room. "-you're not that for me?"

Abaddon only looked back at him calmly.

"But you said you made me-"

"I had a hand in yer makin', James. There are others that have influenced yer soul. But no, yer not my direct responsibility. Nemamial's stead are fighters with just causes, yer his charge. Dean and Castiel have met him; they can assure ya that the two of ya will get along famously. Nemamial is referred to as... a spitfire, I think is the right term. But Nemamial is in my Legion, another of my Lochagos so yer not strayin' too far from me."

Kirk considered her words before nodding in agreement. "When will he come by?"

"Don't set your watch by angels, they're always late." Dean muttered, shrugging one shoulder as he stuffed clean clothes haphazardly into his duffle. "Or sometimes really, really early."

McCoy looked up, rubbing the last of his headache as Abaddon took a step towards him, looking down with her ancient viridian eyes a mix of concern and interest, she spoke quietly. "I expect, as a creature of creation, yer goin' to have a need for more affection and light handlin' than most of my charges."

The doctor snorted and started to speak but he went very still and quiet when the small but unnaturally strong hand settled on his head, fingers threading in his chocolate locks. Another moment and Abaddon dipped and pressed a chaste kiss to his hair.

McCoy shut his eyes and felt ever muscle relax at the touch, a benediction, a seal of her protection. He let out a shuddering breath when Abaddon pulled away, her hand slipping through his hair as she went before it settled into the small of her back.

"I'll not try to change yer nature to suit me better, but do one favor, a mercy for my Grace and soul?"

McCoy nodded mutely.

"If ya are given the chance... slay me a dragon."

McCoy felt his brow furrow; confusion clouding his already overwhelmed mind, the sound of feathers cutting through the air filled the room and where Abaddon had stood was empty.

"She's serious, you know?"

McCoy's eyes moved to look at Dean. The Hunter was toying with his engraved Colt 1911.

"If, by some miracle, you get a shot at one, kill her a dragon. She asked me and Cas to do it, too."

"She... she actually wanted you to kill a dragon for her?" Kirk asked, his eyebrows raised. Dean and Castiel nodded. "I would not do well in your world."

"Understandable." Castiel hummed quietly and gingerly picked up his battered copy of _Watership Down_ and tucking it away in his duffle.

"I'm not sure if it's a loyalty or worthiness thing but it's like her only 'quirk' so, whatever." Dean shrugged, "If you're interested we could help you find one-"

"No... no. If I get the chance." McCoy traced the brand on his wrist and palm all too aware that it was going to become a habit. "If I get the chance, but I'm not goin' to go huntin' a dragon."

"Suit yourself." Dean muttered. "Get yourselves together and we'll drop you off at the campus on our way out of town."

**... ... ... **

_**Starfleet Academy Campus, San Francisco, California**_

_**Stardate 2260; **_

_**September 15; **_

_**2043 Hours**_

The rain was tapered off. Softened to a steady drizzle. The water warmer than it had been. McCoy watched it for a few minutes through the glass of the antique muscle car. He only hesitated to look up into the structures of the Starfleet Campus before unlocking his door.

The creak of metal and leather as McCoy and Kirk climbed carefully out of the back seat of the Impala was foreign. Dean and Castiel followed suit. The outcast angel scribbling something on the back of a scrap of paper. Castiel moved around to speak to Kirk, holding out the scrap of paper and smiling gently when the young captain made some wolfish remark.

McCoy shifted and lifted his attention to Dean as the Hunter moved to his side, hands slid deep into the pockets of the old leather jacket. He looked old. Ancient. But they all looked like that. Castiel and Abaddon and this Hunter. McCoy wondered if he'd look that way soon, listening to angels and knitting people half his age back together, baring the weight of a Nephilim heritage and a she-angel's print branded into his skin.

"Listen, Doc-"

"Leonard." McCoy said quietly and slipped the tips of his fingers into his jeans pockets. "I'm Leonard."

The Hunter looked at him for a minute before extending his hand. "Dean."

The medical officer wrapped his own large and sure hand around one just as scarred and just as nimble, the puckered flesh of the brand trapped between them. It was a meeting of worlds, the old healer and the older warrior, creator and destroyer.

The light rain soaked their hair and the shoulders of their clothes, sending a shiver through muscle and bone.

"He'd be dead without you." Dean's grip slipped and fell back into his pocket, McCoy mimicked him. Dean looked back over his shoulder following Castiel's movements as he explained something to Kirk. "He's already died once because of me, come close too many times ... but this last time... it was too close. Abby was talking to him like he was going..."

Dean let out a shuddering sigh and twitched a shoulder unhappily. McCoy stayed quiet, he could tell it was hard for Dean so he let the Hunter speak without pressure or prompt... at least not from him.

"He'd go to Hell if he died..." It was said quietly, painfully. "He'd go to the Pit and what Focalor did to Abby would look like a smack on the back of the hand... You saved him... you and Abby, it was something... I couldn't do..."

Dean lifted his head until tired, jade eyes met McCoy's hazel ones.

"Thanks..." His voice was rougher, lower and grit, damaged,

"Yer welcome." The doctor responded evenly. "The two of ya look like ya've been through Hell, _stitchin'_ each other up, 'spect ya set yer own broken bones?"

Dean's lips quirked slightly, he looked tired but amused. "Yep. And put in dislocated joints."

McCoy snarled and shuddered. "Neanderthals."

Dean snorted softly and ran a hand through his hair. Looking up as Kirk and Castiel stepped over, the two men in light conversation as Kirk tucked the slip of paper into his pocket. The blonde moved around to stand next to the doctor.

"It's going to be weird, trying to get back to normal-" Kirk shrugged his shoulders hunching them.

"Don't try." Dean sniffed. "Normal doesn't exist for you guys anymore... it's easier if you just don't try."

McCoy nodded grimly and Kirk shifted uncomfortably.

"Take care guys." Dean lifted his hand in a twitching wave before settling it back into his pocket.

"I highly doubt this'll be the last time we see each other." Castiel assured with a dip of his head.

**... ... ... **

**A/N: That is. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed!**

**Mary T. **


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